And one more...

Finished this just after school got out. That's what Christmas Break is for. I can't find the other piece I finished. I think my mother stole it and but it somewhere for safe keeping. :P

Precious is LOST

Missing: One Rubbermaid water bottle.
Last seen: Last Sunday of the school year, May 2008, In the Jesuit House Chapel under the pew to the right of the alter.
Description: Teal. About 9 inches tall with a funny bend near the top. Screw-on lid with pop spout. Wearing two rubber arm bands. One white band printed with "life is precious" and one purple band bearing a butterfly logo and the words "Someone you know has Lupus." (see drawing)
If Found: Contact ZitaLouise at http://splatness.blogspot.com. Water bottle was Zita's constant companion for four happy years and she misses it.

Found my sketch book.

Last fall (as some of you may remember) I took my very first ever art class. As soon as the quarter was over we switched bedrooms and a bunch of my stuff didn't fit in the bedroom I moved to so we boxed it up and put it in the basement where it was quickly buried with the dinosaurs. When we brought our Christmas decorations our from under the stairs we uncovered several other boxes that we haven't seen in a long time.My sketchbook was in one of those boxes so I rescued it today.
It will have to go back soon, as there is still no room for it in my bedroom, but not before I scan and post some of the pictures.

Here are a few more hands. My favorites from this assignment.
Clara posed for the glass one. I did the line drawing and then did it again in charcoal which was really fun.




David and his toy "Yellow Man" who looks mostly grey.


My poor neglected violin.


And Maleny eating some soup.

That was fun. I'll probably post a few other things.
Update on schools: Adam's State offers an art scholarship for which I would have to send in some examples of work. I want to go for whatever I can, of course, but I'm not sure what I should send in. I think the charcoal wine glass would be nice. But I really have no idea what I'm doing with that sort of thing. I'm going to talk to my art teacher when it starts getting closer to the deadline.

Thoughts on various topics in a writing lab

I am sitting in a small room (about eight by ten feet) in the corner of the library.

I am a mighty guru to whom a poor, struggling English student can come for advice.

If you read this blog and note how often I make typos, spelling and grammar errors you will see how ironic this situation is.

My English 101 professor recommended me to the peer services department for their peer tutoring program. Every day for about three hours I sit in this room and remind people to add commas, focus thesis statements, and avoid phrases like "that aint good". I was a bit nervous starting out but I"m beginning to like it. I've met some interesting people, read some really interesting papers and learned a lot about communication and the way I understand the English language.

The most common problems students come to us with have something to do with grammar. We get a lot of foreign students. We were told at training to ask leading questions and avoid giving someone the answer outright. This is very difficult when English is the student's second language. They come in with lots of sentences that are missing articles or have too many prepositions. Sometimes when I'm looking over them I realize that they way they have written a given sentence actually makes more sense by the standard rules of grammar, but it's still wrong. This is English. Sometimes there is no logic whatever behind the way it works so you just have to take my word for it. Why does it seem okay to begin a sentence with the word "However" but not the word "Yet"? They are both conjunctions, aren't they? There are a lot of grammar rules I know by gut and it's taken me a while to figure out how to tell a student what's wrong. I'm learning quite a bit about grammar while correcting other people's writing.
My favorite question so far came in my second week. It was a pretty slow day. I was doing my homework. This boy comes running in. He says "Are you an English tutor?" I'm sitting in a room that says "English Peer Tutoring" on the door. I'm wearing a name tag that says "Writing-Karen" on it (I love that name tag). They always ask, just in case I'm some kind of impostor.
Yes, I am a writing tutor.
"So, you are, like, an expert on English."
Well... I'm here to help.
"Can you look at JUST the FIRST line of this paper?"
Just the first line. Okay.

Dreams... dreams... dreams..., yes, it all starts with dreams.

I'm actually dieing to read the rest of the paper now but I look up and wait for his specific question.
"Do I need the comma at the end of the third 'dreams'?"
I don't think you need both the comma and the ellipses. Go with one or the other, but not both.
He looks very seriously and at his feet for a moment then nods grimly. "That's what you would recommend?"
Yes.
"Okay"
He leaves and I take a deep breath. About five minutes later he comes running back.
"Do I need the comma after 'yes'?"
Yes.

We are supposed to focus primarily on content in a paper. That is my favorite part. I love to see the person sitting across from me and take a little tour of the inside of their head via their writing. There was a very polite young man with a very soft voice who came in to have me read his paper on media bias. He was concerned that his own opinion came through too much thereby undermining the his goal of being unbiased while talking about how biased the new service is. I told him that some of his language was a little strong. He was considering taking out the word "bigots" in his description of Fox News. When we were done he shook my hand thanked me very prettily and walked out saying that he would visit again. I had to smile. He had a very foul phrase tattooed prominently on his neck. One has to wonder about things like that.
I have also read about oral traditions in South Korea, pop culture in a small town in rural China, the comparison between my home town and Tokyo, several papers of varrying quality on why I should vote for Obama (the best ones were by foreign students who cannot vote), and how to bake a three layer coconut frosted cake.

All the diversity that comes through my door, I have been doing some reflecting on the image I present to people by the way I dress and speak etc. Of course, we all make assumptions about a person based on their appearance etc. We try not to but it's only natural; our brains like to put things in groups and classify them. It has been interesting for me to learn bit by bit what sort of assumptions people make about me. Some of them are absolutely right on. Some are sadly mistaken. It's great fun.

I have noticed that people feel the need to apologize to me when they swear in my presence. While it is true that I don't swear (very often), I don't verbally object when other people do it. It bothers me but I actually make an effort not to let it show. After a longer acquaintance the foul language begins to creep in again without apology. I think it's funny that people can tell I don't like it so quickly after making my acquaintance.

I have also concluded that I give the impression of being somewhat stuck up, aloof and unreachable. I hope people are wrong about me in that way. It must be the curse of being an introvert. I wonder if reserve and shyness are often mistaken for snobbery. In my ceramics class this summer I was complimented on something I was making by a student who didn't usually sit near me. I was quite surprised and flattered because she was one of the better students and so I was slow to answer. I have an extraordinary lack of words when I am complimented. It takes a very long time for me to remember how to say "Thank you." My classmate didn't wait very long she muttered something in embarrassment and walked away. That confused me even more. I finally decided she must have thought I was so stuck up I couldn't receive compliments from people "below" me or something. She didn't talk to me and made painful efforts to stay out of my way for the rest of the quarter. What a mess!

I realize that I am an open book about somethings. Everyone can tell when I dislike the content of a conversation just by my face. I am correctly pegged as a conservative fairly quickly. I don't mind. I don't even mind being pegged as a very religious person. That is also true and I'm not ashamed of it. What bothers me is all the assumptions that come with those labels. People tend to think they have me summed up at that point. That's annoying. I was recently pegged as the "smart girl" in my math class. That was rather shocking. Not sure whether I should shatter that illusion or not.

I guess all this means that I need to work on being explicitly compassionate and interested in people. One more step in conquering my introverted, non confrontational nature. This is where the theater background really helps. The challenge is to be myself and not an artificial character learned in acting class. I have to put my real character a little closer to the surface. Not an easy task for someone as reserved as I am. At least not in person.

College Search

Boring updates on Karen's academic career and prospects.

I have narrowed my list to three school I will apply to for fall 2009.

The Short List:

• Adams State College, Alamosa, Colorado.
• Central Washington University, Elensburg Washington
• Lindfield College

All three offer majors in music composition, art and creative writing.

Adams State
Last week I got to visit Adams State. While it is all fresh in my mind (sort of, the fifteen hour drive home was not the best thing for keeping impressions fresh.) I want to write down the pros and cons and various things that will be important to my decision.

General Information: Alamosa is a very small town in southern Colorado. Adams State is very small public school. I had it on my list because the art department looked amazing on the web site. The music and english departments were passable also but the art department really stuck out.

Important stuff:

• Music: I was not overly impressed with the music department. There are not a lot of vocal ensembles, which is the drawback of a small school I guess. I have been kind of spoiled by the schola. The vocal faculty was very nice as was the theory teacher. They all showed an interest in me and were very excited and welcoming. Especially the theory professor. He was very excited about his composition program. It sounded pretty intensive because of all the personal attention a small school offers.
• Art: The art department was AMAZING!! They do everything! There is almost no limit to what one can play with. They have plenty of room for everything they do and encourage kids to explore as many different media as possible. Really awesome. The faculty I met were very friendly. I just met the painting teacher and the ceramics teacher. The painting teacher who gave us the tour must have known the names of every student in the building. So that was kind of nice.
• English: I didn't get to see the English department or talk to any one. I have e-mailed the head of the department but have had no reply. They offer a creative writing major and a student built English minor. I think I would be doing the minor.
• Campus Ministry: The Catholic students on campus meet Sunday nights for mass and dinner afterwards. Priests from all over the area take turns saying mass for them. It sounded like a small but happy little group.

Other noteworthy aspects:

• Student life: Adams State is not a party school. It's a dry campus and it sounded like no one minded much. The art department was telling us that they really do spend their weekends working in the studio not in a bar. I heard similar things from other kids. This school plays outside. Our student tour guide asked me what I liked to do. I said I liked the arts. He was looking for what sport I played. Rock climbing and biking and skiing are big it seems. Their recreation hall included a dance floor and a basketball hoop and a climbing wall as well as a ton of exercise equipment. Sports and outdoor activity is king at Adams State.
• Library: Not impressive. I don't think the students like it much there. They were plugging the coffee cart they were planning to put in. No one was excited about it and the only thing our tour guide could tell us was that there were a few laptops that you an check out.
• Campus: A lot of the buildings were really old and dirty. They said some of them were getting replaced and updated.
• Theater: The theater department looked pretty cool. I got the impression that they didn't do musicals very often, which is understandable, but that the drama department was lively and growing.

Over all: It's hard to put an over all impression into words. There was no feeling of "This is where I belong" when I was on campus. It was more like "If this is what it takes to get into that ceramics studio I guess I could adapt."

Marches

I've been listening to the Lord of the Rings sound tracks lately. The music is one thing I don't complain about when it comes to the LotR movies. Howard Shore did a good job. I haven't listened to them in a really long time though. I like Return of the King best. I liked it so much it almost made me want to watch the movie. Almost.
This time I noticed that there are a lot of marches in those sound tracks. I used to think of marches as those happy, grand pieces of music that one hears at parades. None of the Lord of the Rings marches are like that. What a wide variety of moods a march can have. I knew that all along but I've just never really thought about it. I had one stuck in my head and with it went a few little bits of script from the Two Towers.
Theoden saying

"If this is to be our end, I would have us make such an end as to be worthy of remembrance."

Or something like that.
I think the march is actually from The Return of the King (Pelennor Fields I think but I can't find a good recording of the bit I'm thinking of) but it brings those lines to mind because Howard Shore did an amazing job of putting that sentiment into his music. Whoever is marching to that music knows they will probably not come back but they go on with as much honor and spirit as they can muster.
That's why I want to study music composition in college.

The Keys of the Kingdom

A. J. Cronin's The Keys of the Kingdom is a must read for every Christian and probably everyone who knows a Christian. One of my top five favorite books of all time. Right up there with Lord of the Rings. It's all about what really mater in life; our walk with Christ and our relationships with other Christians and with people who believe radically different things. Humility and charity and courage and all sorts of little adventures on the way. I don't know how much to tell you about the story. It traces the life of a Scottish Priest from the death of his parents in his childhood, through his youth and missionary work in China (which is the main part of the book that got made into a great old movie with Gregory Peck!), to his old age. He is an utter failure in the eyes of the world and the more worldly members of the Church but he is a great hero in the kingdom of God. There is a proud German nun, some Protestant missionaries who rock my universe, lots of Chinese villagers of various wonderful characters, and an atheist doctor who doesn't go to hell. This one will be going with me to college, or anywhere else I end up. Go read it! NOW!

Treasure Island

I got a lot of stories in the early 90's. It was the era of the return of the Disney Musical. Little mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. While those stories are amazing and I love them, I have to admit that some of them were a bit morally bankrupt. Aladdin is a jerk, Ariel is an obnoxious teenager and her father is just what every teen thinks their parents are in their self centered teen age world. As much as we loved them, I'm sure my parents really hoped I didn't take Ariel as my role model. (I did, but mostly the singing on tall rocks part.) I guess the assumption of story writers was that if a character was too virtuous, we couldn't identify with him and grow to love him. Beast was great that way, that was the point of the movie, but I wonder why they didn't give Belle some major flaw. We sure like her a lot despite her virtue. There was also a sense that if the characters didn't have some moral flaw there would be no story cause they would never get into any trouble, or have any fun. It was the age of "Follow your heart" which was often in direct conflict with "Do what's right." In any case, I always got excited when I read or watched a story in which the main characters were somewhat admirable. When they did the right thing even when it was hard and it meant a sacrifice. It's kind of refreshing when you don't want to slap the main character for being such an idiot. You can overcompensate; thus we have characters in a Jules Vern novel. They are so perfect you just have to laugh at them. I'm very fond of them too. Likewise Robert Louis Stevenson. I loved Treasure Island for many reasons (one of them being that it involved pirates) but one of the biggest was that the main characters were fairly admirable. Jim was a good kid. Dr. Livsey is my hero. The Captain is like a rock! While the Squire was kind of a dork he wasn't a bad sort. I hate every movie adaptation for Treasure Island with a passion (except the Muppet version, and I don't know why I forgive them so much) because they always mess it up in one way or other. They make Long John too much of a good guy. Yeah, he was redeemable but they never make him quite as bad as he is in the book. And they never make Jim quite as brave and noble. I think of the old Disney version with the Shirley Temple's male counterpart as Jim. *shudder* I have heard people complain that the book glorifies violence because the climax of the coming of age story is when Jim shoots one of the pirates. In Jim's defense, a real man destroys evil when he cannot redeem it, especially if it's about to destroy him. I like them that way. I love all the adventure in that book too, of course. Jim manages to get into plenty of trouble without off-putting character flaws.

The Girl Son

The Girl Son appealed to my tom boyishness when I was just starting to read. It was about a girl's struggle for freedom as she grows up in 19th century Korea. There are a lot of bits that are important. There was a scene that is very vivid to me in which she is all by herself for the first time and trying to make a bowl of rice. The driving and supporting force in her life has been her mother up to that point but her mother just said goodbye and left her at a boarding school. She is all alone now and has to make her own rice. She tries and fails several times before she manages to make some she can eat.

She is all grown up by the end of the book and she is arrested and put in solitary confinement because she is an advocate of women's education. There is a scene where she is being taken somewhere by a female guard and she reflects that she is more free in her small cell all by herself than the woman who is her captor. That idea intrigued me. The way she described her inner freedom was really beautiful.
It's based on a true story though I didn't ever do much research on the real person. She must have been quite amazing.

I, Jaun De Pareja

Elizabeth Burton De Trevino is a cool writer and I have loved every book of hers that I have read. The first one I read was for a book club when I was about ten. I, Jaun de Pareja was about the slave of a famous painter. The most important part of the story for me was one little scene when the artist is talking about color. I haven't read it since I was ten but this is how I remember it. The artist pointed to a cloak and asked Jaun, or someone, what color it was. Jaun answered that it was blue. The artist disagrees and starts pointing out other colors blended into the blue cloak, in the highlights and shadows. Purple, black, green, red... and suddenly Jaun can see them. He sees color the way the artist does. My mother actually read this out loud to me and I stared at something, I think it was our curtain, and tried to see all the colors the way the character in the book did. I didn't hear the next part of the book at all cause I was too busy looking at all the hidden colors in our curtains.

Meet Addy

I was an American Girl. Addy was my favorite. She's probably responsible for my love of Civil War history. I was a romantic little stoic child. Or at least I was helplessly romantic and tried desperately to be stoic. Addy and her struggle to keep her feeling on the inside when her father and brother were sold to another plantation and when she was terrified on her run North was one of those things that got my little imagination running at ten or twenty time my reading speed. I made up stories about runaway slaves and tragically separated families for the next five or six years...

And it was the history too: the little details of how they lived and what they wore and all that. American Girls was really good at that. There is a long list of historical fiction set in that time that came after Addy and I would probably have missed if I wasn't introduced to the time through the Addy stories. I can't remember many of the names. There was one about a quaker community... Who Comes With Cannons... I think... Across Five Aprils is great... lots of slaves hiding in hay carts and that sort of thing. I would probably not take the Addy books with me to school (though I might bring my mini doll just for old time sake) but those stories were definitely important.

The Silver Chair

Whenever I go away from home I take a book. (Just like the main character in Inkheart by Cornelia Funeke, which is pretty good even thought it drags on forever) When I leave my natural context and go out where I'm not at home and people don't know me, I like to take a story that is part of me out too so I remember who I am. It's usually a Narnia book. Silver Chair almost always gets picked because of the Burnt Marshwiggle. I have to remember that I'm a Narnian and, no matter how far from Narnia I am or how unreal it seems. I ought to live like a Narnian always. It's a journey story and that makes it good to take on journeys. And because in the first chapter Eustace lets Jill in on his terrific secret even though she might laugh at him. Terrific Secrets like that are meant for sharing and you have to take the risk. Christ is my terrific secret.

Book shelf

I'm looking at my book shelf and thinking about stories. If there is one thing that competes with music as the most important cultural force in my life it is stories. Like I said earlier, I didn't read till I was twelve but I heard lots of stories. My mother read to me and Dana read to me and there were books on tape. (Those little cassette tapes that no one uses anymore were a Huge part of my childhood.) In a way you really are what you read and especially when you are a child. I was thinking about what I would bring off my books shelf to college, if I go to a far away college. It was terrible cause I would want to take all the books that stuck and all the stories that are especially well written so I can look and see how it's done.
I am making myself a list. It's quite a mixed bag. Some very silly books and some are recognized Classics. Some are important because of a single paragraph or page that meant something to me. Some I have read over and over because ever word is precious. They are all stories that have shaped me some how. So I think I will put the list in my side bar and maybe tell you about a few of them briefly.

A Bit of Earth

When a thing is wick it has a life about it
Now maybe not a life like you and me
But somewhere there's a singles streak of green inside it.
Come and let me show you what I mean.

When a think is wick it has a light around it
Maybe not a light that you can see
But hiding down below a spark's asleep inside it
Waiting for the right time to be seen.

You clear away the dead partsso the tender buds can form
Loosen up the earth and let the roots get warm
Let the roots get warm
Come a mild day,come a warm rain
Come a snow drop, a-comin' up
Come a Lily, Come a lilac come to call
Callin' all of us to come and see

St. Therese called herself the Little Flower. She wrote beautifully about how God had carefully planted and tended her all through her life. She grew up in the rich soil of her family and was carefully sheltered and cared for until she was transplanted to her Carmelite convent where she lived the rest of her life blooming happily.She is probably not the first one to use a garden as an analogy for our lives and our relationship with God, but she always pops into my head when I think about my favorite musical so I'm giving her an honorable mention.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote some of those formative stories that make me who I am, used the image of a garden to symbolize changed, growth and healing. The Secret Garden is about several broken people finding healing in a garden. It's a classic of children's literature that every girl, at least, should read at a certain age.

Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman who adapted it for the stage accomplished what everyone who adapts books tries for; fidelity to the heart and spirit of the story. They took a beautiful book and made it into an equally beautiful musical with essentially the same story and message to give us: A person's life becomes meaningful and beautiful when it is occupied with somehow giving life to others.
I really can't discribe it. The more I try the more convinced I am boring everyone and not getting my point across nearly so well as that show does on it's own. You just have to listen to the soundtrack (or read the book first if you haven't). It is my fovorite and, I think, musical theater at it's best because, although the story is told apart from the music, the songs add a layer of meaning to ever scene that couldn't possibly be put into a sript.

Quick, irrelevant reasons I love this musical:

• There are ghosts!
• I want Dicken to be my older brother
• Lots of songs I can sing at the top of my lungs when I'm alone in the car.
• Duets! Trios!! Quartetes!!! Now, if I could find some other people to sing them with me...
• In general I love the music; "Winter's on the Wing," "I heard someone crying," "Wick," "Lily's Eyes" *sigh* "Race you to the top of the morning" so many and SO Good.
• The girl who plays Mary on the soundtrack is briliant. She doesn't sound obnoxious and over confident like a typical broadway child star, she is just a little girl.
• Martha and Dicken and their Yorkshire dialect!
• When Dicken sings, sometimes he is talking to Mary and sometimes he is talking to the audience about Mary and sometimes he is talking about Spring and you can never really tell which.
• The music does such an amazing job of showing how the characters change and their relationships to each other.
  

Update on the Boring Things people ask about

I applied to a college this year. Yeah, I've been at the community college but I was getting frustrated because there are a lot of things I want to do that I can't get at the community college. So, after a frustrating visit to the advisor's office, I did a search on college board and found a college that offered most of what I wanted. It was really hard. I had to narrow done my interests to just the ones I think I could really spend four years studying. I ended up with art, music and creative writing. I found a school in Gettysburg that offered those three as majors (creative writing is a minor but that works for me). It's Gettysburg College so of course there is also a great history program and Civil War studies which is perfect for me. There is a classics program and Italian studies, and a whole bunch of other interesting things that Zita likes.
So I got all excited. I applied and even spent a weekend over there. There were a lot of great experiences. I did a vocal audition for the music school there and didn't get nervous. That was a major triumph for me. I also felt the age gap between me and the kids who would be my classmates. I'm 21 and they are going on 19. There is a difference.
I got to visit Catholic University of America in Washington DC while I was in the neighborhood. That was really cool. There were just lots of 'growing up' experiences and everyone can now say "I told you so" and "it's about time" if you really want to.
But I didn't make the cut for Gettysburg this year. I'm back to square one. I am a little disappointed. Everything seemed so perfect for me but I guess God has something else in mind. I have some more things to learn here yet. I will be applying to schools in bulk now I guess. That was the original plan anyway; spend two years at SFCC and then decide where I wanted to go.
Now I have a better idea of what I want to do. After much agonizing I decided that I really do want to study music, art and creative writing. Nothing practical of course, but I can't see myself going to college and not taking the opportunity to study them. I have a year to change my mind. I know that I want to go away from home. I have a list of places I don't want to go to school. I feel like I'm being picky but anything that narrows my choices is good for me and my poor decision making skills. I even know roughly what I'm going to be working on at SFCC this next year. It's a little weird. All these goals and plans and normal things are not as boring to me as they used to me. I still can't wait till school gets out next week so I can get back to my real life.

Doodle

A while back I bought myself some nice pens and a notebook and have been blogging in it. Sort of... Anyway I can do it while I'm at school or on the bus so I'll probably be posting pages from it now and then. Maybe we'll see if I can get any better at drawing with pen.

All Growed up

It's my birthday again. People keep telling me I really am an adult now. All I can think of is these bits of Pooh-ness


As you can see, my hand writing still looks like a child's as does my spelling. All in all I feel much more like a stream than a river. But I am starting to figure out where I'm going so I guess it's okay.

Wrong airport

I had a long conversation with a Muslim... I guess it was three weeks ago. That was interesting. We talked about the Koran (Quran? Qur'an?) for a while. He was trying to get me to question the origins of the Bible but take the authority of the Koran without any scrutiny. The Bible was written too long after Jesus died to have described Him accurately while the Koran has incredible detail about His life. He moved on quickly when I asked him how many years after the death of Christ the Koran was written. He was trying to convince me that Jesus was not God. For some reason he seemed to think that if God were going to become man (and He would never bother doing such a silly thing) He would do it in a more extraordinary way. Becoming a baby was too normal. I tried to explain to him that He did it out of love but at that point we got to the air port and I handed him a terrible wad of bills and promised myself never to be caught at the wrong air port with out a car again. Taxi drivers are scary enough without trying to convert you to Islam.

This is why Easter is fifty days long

So that I can still wish you a happy Easter even when it's almost Pentecost.

Rejoice! Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Happy Easter

I'm rejoicing today because I figured out how to post pictures again!

Bits and pieces.

Last quarter I spent a weekend or two working on this mosaic for my art class. I had a really good time and got a migraine head ache from bending over it. It's a copy from an icon we have in my house.

The early Christians borrowed the mosaic technique from the Greeks and Romans who used them on their floors. The Christians put them up on the walls of their churches. The gold back ground was traditional because it put the figures in an eternal, non earthly setting which was appropriate for the subjects they depicted; Christ and the Saints mostly, also royalty and church patrons. I was sitting in class lamenting the fact that I couldn't go to Italy and see all the beautiful churches with these amazing old mosaics. My teacher didn't tell us that there are newer churches with mosaics like that in our own country.
I was at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (the Immaculate Conception does in deed refer to Mary, in case there should be any confusion) in Washington DC this weekend. There are so many beautiful mosaics in there it is literally breath taking.

I will tell you more about my trip and why I was there later. I'm all excited cause I think I figured out how to work the photo upload and I want to show you the pictures before it hates me again.
Some of my pictures are not so good so you should look at the virtual tour on the web sight but here are mine anyway.

This is Our Lady of Nations. There are so many beautiful little chapels opening in ever corner of this basilica. There are actually two main sanctuaries and dozens of little alters and memorials and smaller chapels.
You just can't beat the Catholic Church for beautiful art. I love all the different images of Our Lady. There is one for every country, race, need and cause. Here are some of my favorites.

This is Our Lady Queen of Missions.


Our Lady of China


I don't know what this images is. It's the Easter Rite Chapel.


Our Lady of Hope


I don't know what this one is called but I like it.


These are just some of them. I only took pictures when the chapels were empty and I wouldn't be bothering anyone with my obnoxious tourist flash.

Then you walk into the main church upstairs. WOW! I've seen the image of Christ in Majesty dozens of times and I've never really liked it all that much. Never under estimate the power of Being there! Mary says "My soul magnifies the Lord". You've been looking at all these images of Mary in nooks and side alters and then you walk into the main church and this meets you:



^This one I took from right under it. Not the best shot. When you walk in it's like He's RIGHT THERE. Then you walk towards it.... and walk.... and walk.... and you get to the high alter... and then you walk some more.... and finally you are right under Him. Makes my little mosaic look kind of pathetic.
Here is a better picture I've stolen from an other web sight:


It's amazing. This is the reason. He is the One Mary leads us to. It's really all about him.

Right below the mosaic there are some statues of Saints. The people who built the basilica were smart cause they put the names of the Saints under them so that people who have no skill or knowledge of symbol recognition with Saints can figure out who's who. There are Saints ALL over the place. Right under Christ in Majesty was this Statue:

It's St. Zita!! right there under the big dome! Needless to say, at this point I was jumping up and down and squealing with excitement... right there under the big dome.

There was a side chaple for St. Louise too. Here is her statue and a mosaic of her.



St. Zita is such an obscure Saint that it was pretty amazing for her to be up there. We looked for a St. Zita medal in the gift shop but there was no sign of her.
There were lots of other Saints around. It was really a lot of fun to be there. I wish I had had a few days to spend looking around cause there were all sorts of things that I'm sure we missed. It's like a treasure hunt. There are things written on the walls and arches and stained glass and symbols that tell you so much if you know what they mean. It's almost a visual overload but at the same time it's still a house of prayer. All the gold and light and color is to lift our minds to God and the glory of his creation. Every Saint is an image of Christ and an expression of His glory. They are our family and little imperfect models for us to follow.
And Mary is the most perfect creature of all. Of all the Saints, she reflects and magnifies the glory of God most clearly and brightly.

God sightings

It's been a really long quarter. I always tell myself that I'm going to make time for the things that are important to me, even the slightly silly things, like this blog. That gets to be a long list and then homework gets in the way. It's almost spring break thank goodness, just a few more weeks. Life's been crazy but I dislike blogging about my life in that normal 'this is what I did this week' way. I'll update you on that later perhaps.
It's Lent. It's cold and foggy when I shuffle to the bus stop ever morning. Lately it's been too warm for my heavy coat on the way home. That's a hopeful sign. Today is Laetare Sunday. Rejoice! Even in Lent we take a quick break in the middle to bring back the organ and sing some rejoicing songs. We sang about Jerusalem at Mass this evening. That's a hopeful sign too. Easter and Spring will be here soon.
It's been one of those weeks where I am reminded that God really does have an idea of where he wants me to be next year, next week, tomorrow and even right now. There have been a lot of moments lately where God has sort of dropped things in my lap. Those things I was worried about but not going to stress over cause God was taking care of it. He really does get to them. I just have to go with His little nudges every moment. Easier said than done. He has also suddenly taken things out of my life. That hurts a little because I've grown so used to having them and they were important to me for so long and then He says "You don't need this anymore. It's alright to let it go. I have somewhere else for you to be." I just have to be at peace about it and trust that this is really His will and not me being lazy or giving up too soon. And I thought I did a lot of growing last year. :P

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall never be shaken. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, to the Lord is round about His people, from this time forth and for evermore.

A great story teller

My mother had a terrible time getting me to read. I remember those terrible little readers from the fifties with cheesy little pictures of chubby children with blond curls and long eye lashes. I don't know why we owned so many of them but I was always dreading having o read out of the next one. There were long hours of me sounding out words so slowly that they lost all meaning in the sentence but it didn't matter cause the sentences were so dull. I always felt cheated when I finally got all the words right and we went over them again to put the sentence together and all we got was "Sally plays with her doll." I've always been such a slow learner.

But I've always loved books, just not reading them. Mom and Dana read to me. We got through quite a pile of children's literature before I could read anything like that for myself. Some of those books came and went without much notice and some I have reread dozens of times. One unforgettable story was about a cat who belonged to a Wizard. Ever since the Wizard gave the cat the gift of speech there was nothing the cat wanted more than to be a human. When the Wizard finally granted his wish a crazy and hilarious adventure followed. The book was The Cat Who Wished to be a Man by Lloyd Alexander.

Several years later Lloyd Alexander's stories (with some help from Redwall) were the irresistible sirens that made me a reader forever. I was about twelve. I got The Book of Three on tape read by the author and got hooked. But those little cassette tapes (such a thing of the past now) were easily corrupted and about half way through the story the voice stared echoing and fading in and out and as hard as I tried there came a point where I couldn't understand him anymore. So I had to get the book out and actually read it. Then there were the other four books in the Prydain Chronicles and the dozens of other miscellaneous books about everything from unemployed violinists to recently displaced bean counters. The Gowgan and the Boy, The Iron Ring, The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian, The Arcadians, Time Cat, Gypsy Riska... the list goes on. The characters had real voices and faces and funny little quirks. Admittedly, there were character types that got reused in almost every book, and there were plot twists that I cam to expect in each story. But every book began with a sentence or two that made it impossible to leave the book at the library. There were messages about honor and sacrifice and love and humility and the value of life. One of them is almost singlehandedly responsible for getting me re-interested in history and introducing me to Longfellow ( if in a rather backward way) There was one trilogy that I didn't like because the questions it asked about war and violence bothered me. He didn't seem to have very good answers. But maybe that was the point. There are not good answers about somethings. It was probably just a little too big for me. I will have to read it again someday. I finished every one of them with the conviction that it was the best one he'd ever written... and then I'd open the next one.... I have not read all of them because my new found love of stories soon took me to other corners of the library but the ones I did read stayed with me. He was a huge part of my life!



I found out today that Lloyd Alexander died last summer!

And no one told me!!! Today is his birthday. That kind of freaks me out; I found out he's dead on his birthday. It totally ruined my day.

I would finish a Lloyd Alexander book and read the inside jacket panel about how Mr. Alexander lived with his wife and his cats on Drexel Hill Pennsylvania. I wanted to go there and meet him. Since that seemed highly unlikely I would say a prayer for him or offer mass for him in hopes that I would get to meet him in heaven. I don't know anything about his faith or lack there of, but I was determined. Now I guess I have to work on getting there myself.≈

nonsense and other matters

I think I have lots of important things to be doing right now. But I can't remember what they are. That's probably a bad thing. Mondays are terrible partially because they loom ominously at the end of your lovely weekends but also because you get to the end of them (or at least I have) and school doesn't seem so bad. Every thing's due at the end of the week and it feels like there is plenty of time.

Do you ever have one of those days when you just want to hang out at home and wear a toga? Today I would like to wear a dress from thirteenth century Italy. I think it would be very convenient to have full skirts with petty coats so I could stay warm and still look somewhat nice in cold weather.

I talked to a boy today who was looking at a beautiful mosaic of a scene from the Gospels and was completely ignorant of it's meaning. "Why is Jesus about to make out with that other guy?"
Me: "You know what that is, don't you?"
Blank look.
Me: "Seriously, you don't know?"
Him: "We're not really very religious... at all."
Me: "Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss."
He looked at me as if I had just told him that there was life on the moon.
Me: "It's just kind of a famous moment!"
I guess I knew there were people out there who had no idea who Jesus is or what He did. Kind of sad. My teacher (same class) obviously spends a lot of time studying early Christian art but when she starts talking about the symbolism in Christian art she is clearly out of her depth. She keeps talking about the way light is used and all she can say is "Light came to symbolize God's wisdom, or something like that." I realize she is not there to give us a lecture on symbolism but that seems so incomplete. Our text book seems to think that most images on stained glass windows are there to encourage common people to donate money to the Church. *Sigh* And they think I'm sheltered.

A person's a person, no matter how small.

Act Two (being the scenes directly following Act One)

Horton sits on the egg for fifty one weeks. He is pulled from town to town and draws a crowd of thrill seekers cause he is so laughable. How humiliating. One day, who should come looking for a laugh but a flashy bird named Mayzie with a fabulous tail. It takes Mayzie a little while to remember who Horton is and why he is so happy to see her. Horton offers the egg back to her. He has made his promise good and now he would like to go home. Mayzie makes a few lame excuses and then tells Horton that, since it has made him such a big hit in show biz, he can keep the egg. Gee, she feels great about herself. She gave something that was hers away to help make someone else happy and successful. Her shallowness never ceases to amaze me. She makes a hasty exit leaving Horton with the egg for good. Horton is technically free to get rid of the egg now, if he wanted to. He's not baby sitting, egg sitting, anymore. But he sees the egg as abandoned and unwanted and helpless, just like himself, so he keeps it. He sings over it about a place where he can find belonging. Solla Sollew is a far away place where people are kind and there is no war or cruel winters. It's the place that Horton and Jojo go in their mind when they are thinking all alone. They have been looking for it all their lives. Sometimes Horton thinks he's almost there but it's always just out of reach. When they finally find it they will be home and they will stay there forever. Unlimited desire for perfect Home.

Back to the Whos. When the clover was dropped and lost, Whoville was wrecked as if an earth quake had struck. In military school, General Shmitt has been training the boys to fight. There is a war on Who against the people who put their butter on the wrong side of the bread. On Christmas eve, on the field of battle, Jojo takes a stand against the General. He refuses to fight, gives up his sword and his uniform hat and walks away... right through a mine field. There is an explosion and General Shmit has to break the news to Jojo's parents as they are trying to celebrate Christmas without their son.
The Cat takes us back to the scene of the tragedy to see if we need really fear the worst.
I guess I'll tell you a bit about this song since it's one I can put up here for you to hear. All through the show, Jojo uses his imagination to make the world more colorful for himself. When he stands up to General Shmitt it is the first time he uses that brilliant mind of his to do something that means something. Then when he is escaping over the mine field the Cat (a symbol of his imagination) comes with a group of creeping figures called hunches. His imagination is running the wrong way with him. He's scaring himself into helplessness. In the middle of the song he shouts at the Cat to go away. He doesn't want to think any more. It always gets him into trouble. Then the cat gives him a new 'think'. The Cat thinks a glimmer of light for Jojo. The hunches are all in Jojo's head and he starts to control them in stead of letting them confuse him. He uses that great mind of his to find his way home. At the end of the song Jojo makes it home and the music swells to end triumphantly with Jojo's two songs; The theme from Alone in the Universe ("I have wings and I can fly...") and then the chorus of hunches sing 'anything's possible!' It's one of my favorite moments in the show. Jojo and his imagination are undervalued because the other Whos don't see a practical use for it. In his song Anything's Possible, Jojo (with the help of the Cat) makes a huge mess of his house cause he let his 'thinks' carry him away. Later he feels alone in the universe because no one else wants to share his 'thinks' with him. When he uses his 'thinks' to find his way home, the other Whos can finally value and share his gift. Both Alone in the Universe and Anything's Possible are resolved and completed by the end of 'Have'in a Hunch"

I bet you forgot about Gertrude McFuzz.
Well, that's okay, I mean, everyone does.
But Gertrude did something that not any bird could do.
So this is the tale of Miss Gertrude Part two.

Gertrude shows up in the show again at the foot of Horton's tree in the middle of the night. Her tail is gone. Horton is kind of surprised to see her. Why should she even be there. He asks how she found him. When Gertrude says it's a long story, I don't think Horton realized what he was asking for.
Gertrude launches into the tale of her tail. She realized that the tail was more about her own vanity then helping Horton and so she had it plucked out. It was a painful operation but it was worth it cause now she could save the man she loved. She went through a horrible fantastic journey to get to him sacrificing every form of comfort and security all for Horton. She tells Horton, in great detail, all the things she did for him. The song keeps growing and growing. The words are a crazy tongue twister. She pretty much pours her heart out for him. Always repeating and reminding him that it was 'for you' "All for you!"

"Now here I am, the worse for ware, and here you are. I'm here, your there.
And maybe NOW you'll now I care for you!"

Completely out of breath she adds quietly.

"Oh yeah, and Horton, one more thing. It took me seven weeks, but I found your clover too."

That is the happiest moment ever for Horton. What a great feeling to have his Whos back and know that they are safe. "Gerturde, I've never noticed before, but you're amazing" Way to pass on the joy! Gertrude is floating.

Their joy is short lived however. The Sour Kangaroo and the Wickersham Brothers show up and put Horton under citizens arrest. They take him to trail and testify against him. He is charged with 'talking to a spec, disturbing the peace and loitering on an egg." Yurtle the Turtle quickly finds Horton guilty and sentences him to be locked up in the Nool asylum for the criminally insane. The clover is doomed to be boiled in oil. Horton doesn't care what happens to him but he cannot see Who destroyed. As the Wickersham brothers try to pry the clover out of his hand... trunk.... he makes one last attempt to prove that the Whos exist. He calls to the Whos and asks them to shout, all together shout and make themselves heard. Horton can't help them but if they shout loudly enough they can save themselves and Horton too. They must shout over the gleeful singing of the Nool Citizens with their tinny voices that only Horton could hear to begin with. It's a pretty noisy song. The Whos are shouting "We are here, we are here!" The Nool Citizens are chanting "Boil it, boil it!" and Horton breaking in desperately to encourage them. Then the cat friezes everyone for a moment. The Whos look to Jojo, the thinker. "Think of something!" The Cat narrates:

"Now just for a moment, young Jojo looked Grim
The fate of the Whos rested squarely on him.
And then came a think, a peculiar new word
no one ever had hear."

Then everyone is singing and chanting and yelling again and over it all, the small voice of Jojo carries

YOP!

The citizens of Nool gasp, they hear! Horton's not crazy, the Whos really are persons no matter how small, Jojo is a hero and a great thinker. The Sour Kangaroo promise to help protect the spec. And the Young Kangaroo in her pouch said "Me Too!"

Just as Jojo is about to 'think' a perfect ending for this story the egg begins to hatch. Or maybe that was the ending he thought of. In any case it hatches and out comes an 'elephant bird'. Horton has that sinking feeling that you get when you are handed the most wonderful gift that you have ever recieved and you know that it won't fit, it's not going to work, you are somehow unworthy, or unable to enjoy it.

"Oh Gertrude what'll I do? I'm slow and I'm fat. All I know is the earth. He'll need much more than that!"

Then Gertrude gets to sing his song for him so he knows, beyond a doubt, that he can count on her and he'll never never be alone in the universe again.

Gertrude sings: "I have wings and I can fly.
You teach him earth and I will teach him sky."
Horton: "Just call my name,"
Both: "And I'll see you through"
Horton: "One small voice in the universe"
Gertrude: "One true friend in the universe"
Both: "Who believes in You!"

Then the cat ends it all by putting it all back into his hat. And, after one of my favorite curtain call songs of all time, leaves that hat, the symbol of imagination and creativity, in the hands of the boy from the beginning of the show. What will the boy do with it?

"Their adventures were over,
The sky became... pink.
And then guess what happened?
Well, what do you Think..."

One true friend in the universe

Zita is using a lot of will power cause she is about to rant about something for several pages but it could be several dozen pages so count yourself lucky, and if you need a break you can always read the rest an other day.

If you could give a child a message, an idea you wanted them to keep and believe in all their lives, what would it be? How would you tell this child so that the message would stick forever? Put it in a story. Make it rhyme. Set it to music. It will stick. Just ask the advertising industry. I think I've said that before. Oh yeah, the other way to make something stick is repetition. Stories stick, rhymes stick, music sticks. They all stick especially well in children. What would you tell the child? I would like to tell a child to be who God wants him to be. Be truly himself. I would like to tell a child to pay attention to the world around him; notice things and never lose his imagination or wonder at God's creation. I would like to tell a child to stand up for what's important, defend the weak, especially people; people are important. You know where this is going don't you? There is a musical that has a great story, rhymes all the way through and is about 75% music. AND hidden in this rhyming musical story, is a message about being yourself, using your imagination, standing up for what's right, defending the weak and valuing people.
What's good for a child is good for an adult. An adult might walk away from this show with the same messages as a child, but on a deeper level. That is, if the adult pays attention and is humble enough to be taught a lesson by an elephant, a bird, a little boy and a cat.... in a hat.

At the opening of this show there is bare stage in the middle of which sits a solitary hat. You know the one: it's tall and has red and white stripes. A boy walks on and starts to imagine things about the hat. He imagines the Cat and suddenly the Cat appears. Throughout the show, this boy and the cat imagine things and they come into being. It all comes out of that marvelous hat. The stage quickly fills with color and characters and music.
I'm really bad at summarizing plots. I am hoping you have all read Dr. Seuss books. They pretty much mixed all the best stories together and put them to music.

Project playlist has it's limits and so if you want to hear the Seusical music (which I've had here before) you have to scroll all the way down, hit pause on the regular player, then scroll all the way up and hit play on this little player
here--->

That's all they have at Radio Blog so that kind of gives you a taste. I wish I could find a few of my favorites. As much as I love the Cat, I really prefer everyone else's songs.

There are basically three stories interweaving in Seussical The Musical.
The main one, around which all the others hang is about Horton the elephant. There are two parts to Horton's story; first of all Horton hears the voices of people too tiny to see. He promises to protect a tiny planet called Who that looks like a spec of dust. No one believes that there is anyone living on it but him.

The second plot is about the boy who lives on the small planet of Who that Horton is protecting. His name is Jojo and he has an over active imagination. He has too many "thinks." His parents and the whole community think of this as a serious problem and they send him off to military school to keep him from 'thinking.'

Thirdly, there is a bird named Gertrude who is irresistibly attracted to Horton's big heart. She thinks she's too plain to be noticed and spends much of the show trying to impress him by changing her appearance.

And of course, there is the cat. He shows up in each story and guides it along, making things more complicated or saving the day by turns.

Horton is the heart and soul of this show. His faithfulness and determination and most of all his humility make him very reachable as a hero. There are things that Horton believes in and these are so important to him that he is willing to face the scorn and ridicule of his peers and go through all sorts of terrible things. How many of us would do that? His belief in the sanctity of life is so strong that nothing will deter him from protecting these small people that called for his help. Over and over he sings quietly, in his simple way 'a person's a person, no matter how small." That settles it for Horton. Let them all laugh. He has promised to protect a tiny planet full of people only he can hear. Nothing will shake his resolve and his faith.
Horton's pretty solid, but that doesn't mean it's not hard for him. He hits a low point in the show after he has been guarding the Whos for some time. The other citizens of the Jungle of Nool and their mockery are starting to get to him. He has to find something to get him through it. He observes that the other jungle animals lack a gift of hearing and noticing. It makes him even more lonely to know that no one else notices all the wonderful things he can see and hear. But this gift is also his comfort; he has wings that can raise him up and out of reach of the base nastiness of his neighbors.
As Horton is singing about this bittersweet loneliness, on the tiny planet of Who, Jojo is also singing. Jojo is at Military school where he'll "sweat and shiver and eat raw liver" in an attempt to make him like every other Who boy; practical, neat, clean and, ultimately, unimaginative.

"Nobody knows that I have wings, yes, I can fly
around the moon and far beyond the sky.
And someday soon I know there you'll be...
One small voice in the universe,
One true friend in the universe
Who believes in me."

In real life, God sometimes puts people in your life that feel like family (in a good way) after you've known them for a matter of moments. It's one of those miracles that happen two or three times in a lifetime and make you feel that perhaps the world is not such a bad place. In a musical, that sort of miracle happens when two characters, who haven't met, are singing the same song in two different places. It's a pretty good way of describing it actually: Suddenly you hear someone singing the harmony to your song. Horton hears Jojo singing and they become friends between the second verse and the final refrain. The song is called Alone in the Universe and it's one of my favorites. I love friendship duets.

Meanwhile in an other part of the jungle... well, next door actually, Gertrude McFuzz is frustrated cause she's been singing along with Horton for weeks and he hasn't noticed. She is attracted to Horton's compassion and determination and wants to help and support him but their neighbors keep drowning her out. She not very loud, in fact she kind of shy and plain. She is a bird with only one feather in her tail. Her friend Mayzie has a flashy fabulous tail and everyone notices her. So Gertrude, at Mayzie's advice, goes to a doctor and demands special pills to make her tail grow. Does this sound familiar? How many women do this sort of thing. Somehow we think that we are not good enough just the way God made us. We change the way we look or dress or act. We think that these superficial things will keep us from being wall flowers. We all want to be noticed or somehow affirmed. Gertrude obviously doesn't want the kind of attention that Mayzie gets but she thinks that's the only way. So she gets herself a big colorful tail.
Does Horton Notice? He's got too many other things on his mind to care about birds with giant tails.

Some of Horton's neighbors, a trio of monkeys called the Wickersham brothers, steal the clover on which the planet Who is resting. They lead Horton on a desperate chase across the jungle. The clover gets dropped in a field full of clovers where, they are sure, Horton will never be able to find it. Horton is crushed but he just takes a deep breath and starts picking clover, one at a time and searching for his Whos.

Also determined, Gertrude follows with her tail to get Horton's attention. All her parading brings no results at all. Horton is too busy listening to one clover and then an other. He's not real interested in big tails anyway. He's an elephant after all. Gertrude keeps taking pills, her tail doesn't even fit on the stage anymore, but Horton won't notice her.

As Horton is out in the field someone else is feeling hopeless; Mayzie. She's bored. Now, for a children's show, this is a bit borderline: Mayzie is stuck on a nest cause he boy friend left her with an egg. Yeah. *cough* Remember Mayzie is the most popular bird in the Jungle of Nool because she is fabulous and beautiful and shows off her big colorful tail. Now, look where all that attention has gotten her. She has no idea what love is. Sacrifice is the language of love andMayzie doesn't speak it. She is just looking for the next thrill, the next joyride. Her last joyride leaves her on a nest with an egg that is demanding her care and attention. It demands sacrifice. It demands love. All she wants to do it get out of it. PoorMayzie will never experience the lasting joy that comes from giving yourself to someone, for real. She whines to Horton about how unfair life is. He sympathizes. She asks him to take care of the egg for a while so she can have a short vacation.
She'll be right back.
Really.
Horton is so sweet, he knows what it's like to have a responsibility that seems too heavy. Horton's self esteem is really lot at this point. He feels like a failure because he lots the Whos. He needs to prove, to himself if no one else, that he is dependable and capable of defending the weak like he promised. He agrees to take care of one more helpless little person. It is obvious to us that Mayzie isn't going to come back any time soon but Horton keeps hopping in her. He promised to take care of the egg and even if she doesn't keep faith with him, it doesn't matter; "an elephant's faithful, 100%". Why would he do that? He has no special love for Mayzie. Why would he sacrifice for her like that? It's that hope and conviction in him that keeps hims sitting on the egg for months. He may realize that Mayzie is not coming back, or he may not, it doesn't matter. The egg needs him now. Helpless people need to be protected and as far as Horton is concerned, the egg is also a person.

The main problem is that sitting on the egg keeps him from searching for the Whos. When rain and storms come Horton is terribly torn between searching for and protecting the Whos, thereby letting the egg frieze or staying with the egg and hopping the Whos will be alright. He ends up sitting miserably on the egg and worrying.

An elephant sitting on an egg is so ridiculous that when some hunters come through the jungle they decide to capture Horton and sell him to a circus. Horton calls desperately for help and Gertrude hears him and comes to his aid. Unfortunately her tail is so long and heavy that she can't really... fly.... at all. Just when he needed her most and he would have been sure to notice her, Gertrude utterly fail him. All because she had tried to get his by superficiality. What good is a big beautiful tail if you can't help the person you love when he needs you?
It's too late, Horton is taken far across the ocean, egg nest and tree.

End Act One

Oh, look at that; I have a blog

Too bad I'm starting school again on Thursday.

Merry Christmas!! I can still say that cause it's not over till the sixth and then there are still a bunch of extra Christmas-ish feasts.
And Happy New Year!! May 2008 be filled with blessings and graces.
I don't really want to babble on about what I did this year, mostly cause my feet are cold from sledding, so I think I will go to bed now.