Christina's World

You know, it kinda sux being the minority in a large group of men.

I'm working, and over the wall comes the words (from a rather disrespectful young man about my age), "Trade in your wife for two 20's?" followed by a loud chorus of guffaws.

OMG. Why am I so offended?

Someday, I should visit here.

Manage to avoid the hyper sensitive car alarms. Especially in Florida.

Every thunder boom, you hear a *beep beep beep* coming from the parking lot.

Must admit, its amusing...but seriously...remember to avoid =p

Someone called me a feminist.

I find that absolutely hilarious.

For some reason on the 4th of July, we were discussing Ostritch eggs. And I mentioned how my mother decorates them...with dye. And one of the young women there was saying - like an Easter egg!

Well...yes and no.

Anyway, the P word that means Easter for Eastern Europe is Pascha (HA! It is actually derived from Passover...lol).

And the name of the art for decorating Ukranian Easter eggs is Pysanky...and here's some pictures :)










So yeah, not so simple as what we are used to seeing as Easter Eggs =p

I just suspended 3 years of my life.

No more taking the brunt of brutal fights for loyal comrades as my lovely warrior Charly.

No more trying to master the art of dps as my first character ever, the hunter Andrienne.

No more healing fellow pvp twinks as the awesome female dwarf priest Brydget.

I'm oddly sad now that the subscription has been cancelled...even though I haven't played in months.

I made lots of friends and have enjoyed the time immensely :) It was much more than a game, but a means of enjoying time spent with friends all over the world, many whom I've met :)

Fun while it lasted, but no more.

So, life has been updated.

I finished reading Job...finally. Now I have to organize my thoughts and type something up. Its good...really good. I think I have some good information here :) It was a good study :)

I'm back on a diet (that I'm going to ruin in 5 minutes by going and getting chocolate chip ice cream...mmmm...soooo good)! I've been exercising and doing weights, too :)

I've been so stressed out at work lately that I'm starting to have energy crashes. I come home and I sleep for several hours...its horrible. I wish I could come home and have enough energy to take care of my house, but I'm simply exhausted afterwards.

Oh...and my personal life has suddenly had a little sunshine come its way :) His name is Paul and he likes to make me smile. There's so much more to say there, but I don't think I will :)

You know you aren't treating your body right when you wake up with a hangover and you haven't been drinking.

Oh wait. That's the problem. I haven't been drinking - Water, Alcohol, Juice...anything.

Time to start...(on anything but soda and alcohol =p)

He's simply on hold.

I have more to write about my study, I've just been really busy lately so haven't had much time to write about ANYTHING I've been wanting to write about. And tonight is not the night to start just yet =p

I was always saying intimidating and other things like that, but it never really fit and I think thats why you're having trouble finding a role in places, because they just don't understand you because you seem to be so different from everything they're used to.

Can I just be unique, and not crazy. I mean, I know I think differently and all, but crazy has always implied a mental illness to me. And I'm not mentally ill. I'm just different...and I shouldn't be ashamed of that. However, I shouldn't expect people to know how to respond to me, either.

Pandora.com is very good at matching up music to styles going on just a band name or a song.

They match musical stylings, use of harmonies, types of voices.

Like, my Relient K channel is full of FM Static, Stellar Kart, Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy.

My Britt Nicole channel is full of female voices, one right after the other.

The one thing the fail to get right though, is WORDS. Relient K != Fall Out Boy.

Britt Nicole is not some hyper angry feminist out lashing at the world.

Its kinda disappointing.

The excitement of what lies ahead courses through you as you begin on the trail. What will you discover up ahead? Just around the bend? Surrounded by beauty, you start.

After many hours of traveling, you begin to forget why you started on this journey. Your steps begin plodding, and you force one step in front of the other...moving forward. what lies ahead holds no appeal, you can only concentrate on the here and now. One step in front of the other.

Occassionally there are streams of running water and soft grass where you can rest and regenerate and gain new life, meaning, perspective.

Sometimes, you broke your toe in the desert and must keep going...going...going...

The journey is never ending til you lay down and rest for eternity.

My journal seems to chronicle this journey of life so incredibly well...happiness, excitement, hope, hurt, pain, suffering, struggle...3 years of laughter and tears in these pages.

And one more stone to place on that road: Contentment. Its a discipline. Somewhere deep down, I knew this. Its been said to me before...but not that clearly. Not so concise. It makes sense, though. The discipline of daily surrender of hopes, dreams, goals unrealized as of yet is what cobbles your path with contentment. No, I don't have these things yet, but instead of holding on to them so tightly, I should surrender them for another day and rejoice in all that I have been given.

So many thoughts running through my head today...intentional vs unintentional dating being one of them...seriously, whatever happened to fathers asking the men for their intentions prior to them dating their daughters?

And what about the daughters that enter dating without any intentions other than to just date? Don't they realize that their false witness is preventing the women around them that desire marriage from actually getting there?

I'm sorely tempted to discourage my sons and daughters from dating until they are ready to pursue marriage...coming from the most sheltered child around, it really does a much better job at preparing them for a lasting relationship than letting them date whoever, whenever.

Well, enough of that...

I was listening to that song from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack...There's something there that wasn't there before...

And the question that arose in my mind, is it really possible for her to have fallen in love with him? Even looking the way he did? I mean, he started out acting just the way he looked...but she never backed down...I mean, she wasn't interested in him at all...but look what happened...they changed together. Little by little, he became less a beast and she gained a little more respect for him...until at some point, there was love...

Why can't men work on that change? And why can't women give respect where respect is due?

How much rhythem do you need in order to be able to CONDUCT???

Like, if I wanted to start a bell choir at my church, and I have absolutely no amount of rhythem, would I be ok directing it?

**And how do you spell Rhythem? Like that or as Rhythm? I think one of those might be a british spelling...**

FINALLY! After 7 days of being silent with his closest friends, Job speaks...

And its not words of praise, but of bitter suffering...He ends chapter 3 and his lament of his conception and birth with this:

Oh, why give light to those in misery,
and life to those who are bitter?
They long for death, and it won’t come.
They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure.
They’re filled with joy when they finally die,
and rejoice when they find the grave.
Why is life given to those with no future,
those God has surrounded with difficulties?

~Job 3:20-23

Again, what makes God GOD? Is it simply his supreme power? Is he still worthy of love even in the midst of such painful circumstances?

Even if our very breathing is a living curse, why would God keep us alive? What glory does he gain from our pain?

And who would put people in pain for their own advancement except an evil person? Maybe because GOD is the only one who is worthy of Glory. Maybe because he created this world for his own pleasure. Maybe because all of this...our living, our dying, our walking, our running, our joy, and our suffering...is not about us. Its about HIM.

And that makes the difference, right?

So, in chapter 2, Job is cursed with a skin disease...

Job's response:
Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad? (2:10b)

I would like to point out before I complete the rest of this study that its not GOD that is doing these things to Job...its just that God is not intervening. He is not the author of evil, but of good. Satan is doing these things and God is simply witholding his blessings.

It's frustrating to read this and think that God could have done something and he didn't. It is frustrating to think that God is gambling with someone's life. However, there is a lesson that needed to be learned. Not just by Job, but by us, too. And because he is omniscient, he knew what it was that Job needed to learn.

So what's the deal?

Then the Lord asked Satan, "Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless - a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil."

Satan replied to the Lord, "Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!"
~Job 1:8-11

When you remember the rest of the story, this is where most usually start saying how cruel God is...

There is something here...God loves Job...and yet he saw fit to remove all those blessings from him. Why? Why did God do it? Job never answers that question. All we know at this moment is that Job had everything and loved and feared God. Would he love and fear God if he had absolutely nothing?

The question to ask instead is this: When is God worthy of praise? Is he always good, just, loving? Is he worthy of our giving of our lives to him even when he doesn't bless us? Is he still God?

When I was about 11 or 12 Years old, my mom taught me and my sister the four T's of bathroom cleaning.

1. Toilet


2. Tub


3. Tile


4. Tink

I still use that as my check off list today when cleaning the bathroom. Next time you think your parents are giving you silly and juvenile gimmiks for life's tedious jobs, remember that the silly is much easier to remember than the serious.

Her mother probably taught her that >.<

Anyway, I'm grateful for motherly wisdom and for her teaching me how to properly care for one of the nastiest rooms in the house.

I can tell which chores I did when I was younger because they're the ones that get the most attention in my apartment...lol...except the dusting. Must work on that one.

WHAT am I supposed to be doing?

I get goosebumps when I hear worship music, desperately wanting to lift my voice in praise, quelling that so as not to be heard through cubicle walls.

I have energy and life in my eyes and movements when I am playing with children.

I wake up in the morning and look forward to cleaning my home.

I have exciting ideas on how to teach that I want to implement.

I have a desperate urge to spend an entire afternoon in my kitchen cooking - but alas, I have no one to feed >.<

All this is smacking of motherhood.  So why not?  Why not yet?  What am I supposed to be doing instead?  I'm tired of desperately waiting - something needs to change NOW...but what is it that its supposed to be?  What can pay my bills and give me motivation to live my life everyday?  It certainly isn't what I'm doing now.

So many people say that what  your supposed to be doing is glorifying God no matter where you are...but I don't know how true that is...I mean, God told Abram to pack up and move to a place where he could glorify God.  Was Abram not as able to accomplish that where he was?   Or did God have a different reason for doing that?  Is it possible that my increasing dissatisfaction is because I'm not where God has told me to go and I've continued putting it off over and over again?

WHAT am I supposed to be doing?