so yeah

hey everyone, here is my first real mass update over blog, we'll see how it works. i hope you all get to spend at least a little time away from work/school this weekend, and enjoy doing whatever it is you do (reference? anyone?)

on a much less fun and uplifting note, my uncle passed away today so i'll be leaving state college to head down to kentucky thursday night or friday morning. i'll be back in town and with email probably monday. i'm staying with my brother who doesn't have internet at his place (i know! they're living in a cabin in west virginia right now, so i guess i can't expect internet)and then going down to KY with e and his wife to the viewing/funeral. i haven't been to one of these since my grandfather died 5 years ago. i'm thinking it's going to be kinda tough, so happy thoughts, prayers, good vibes/karma, whatever it is you do, send it my way this weekend. my uncle lived a good life, and he lived probably 5 years longer than the doctors thought he would live. he went into hospice last week so we were just kinda waiting. i guess that makes it better, but still pretty sad. i am glad that eli and justine and i can go down to the funeral. i think my dad is taking it pretty hard that he can't be there, but i know he's happy that we will be there. i hope that makes sense. i've spent the whole night on the phone and trying to figure out what i'm doing so i'm kinda spent at this point. ok. i'm going to try and do a little packing before bed. i love you all, have a great weekend and i'll email or something when i get back to civilization next week.

central pennsylvania at its finest

so in a few days pennsylvania will shut down it's gun database. they use the database to check and see if you are allowed to have a gun before you can buy it. so for 4 days in 2007 people won't be able to buy guns.well and as the article points you, you can buy a gun, but you can't take it home with you till after the system is back up and running. so this morning i was listening to the local am station and they were talking about this whole issue and apparently people are freaking out. i guess the shutdown is going to hit during dove and canada geese season (they have a dove and canada geese season?!?!?!?!) so this morning people called into the radio show to talk about why they were pissed. so of course the one guy i hear talk decides to go the slippery slope route- if it's 4 days then next time it will be 4 months! and the radio guys were like, look, don't make that argument it makes you sound like a raving lunatic. and the guy says fine. and then makes the same exact argument for 5 more minutes. sigh. now this guy said nothing about the hunting season this will infringe on or anything like that. just 'it's our right and you're taking it away for 4 days'. i mean really. come on, it's 4 freaking days!! give it up! if you really need a gun in those 4 days, go to a gun show and buy one illegally off of a guy in the parking lot. you'll still get your weapon, and really if you neeeeed it and can't wait 4 days, you probably weren't going to do anything legal with it anyway, so why do you care.

a quote from my new favorite website www.overheadinnewyork.com
White boy #1: Hey, do you watch wresting?
White boy #2: No, I'm not that white

haha...happy tuesday!

he finally got it right!

George Bush, asked if he could speak French: No, I can't. I can barely speak English.

feeling blah

so i guess i have a case of the mondays. i just feel blah and i don't really know why. I spent the weekend moving and starting to unpack and doing laundry. i realized that even though i got rid of a bunch of stuff when i moved, that i should get rid of even more. a lot of it is stuff i just need to commit to. i have tons of memento type stuff that i need to put in scrapbooks, but i'm not making the time to make those scrapbooks. and if i'm not going to make the scrapbooks then i just need to toss the stuff. i did that with a bunch of my americorps tshirts, i took pictures of the logo's and i'm going to print the pic's out and make a collage. so i don't have the tshirts, but still can remember the events. i think i'm also feeling shitty about food and what i look like and how it seems so easy. just eat healthier things and exersize more and you'll feel better, you'll be happier with yourself, and you'll end up looking better. so why is it so fucking hard to do? and it always comes down to me. what is so wrong with me that i can't do this? i don't know why this is all coming up right now. i don't usually have such a defeated attitude and i don't know why i have one now.
i should be happy. i'm finally moved into my new place, the semester is about to start and i'm doing some freaking amazing things with some great people. i'm finding some great seminary information. this morning i went upstairs and EJ was standing in the living room wearing underwear, a tiara and a plastic silver and pink gemstone necklace(she's 3 and a half). and she says 'rachel, i'm wearing panties.' how can you go to work and have a bad day after that? it was so cute. and yet here i am. just crying for no real reason in the middle of the day. i guess it just happens sometimes.

it's not easy being green

sometimes, because i live in a tiny little town with a tiny little npr affiliate there is a plethora of classical music on their station. and so in order to hear people talking (which i like) i have to listen to the more conservative radio station that hosts such blowhards as glenn beck, bill o'reilly and sean hannity. now, i can usually stand it for about 15 minutes and then i have to change the station or start yelling at the radio. this morning glenn beck was talking about how stupid we all are to want to use ethanol. that we would need a corn field the size of texas to be able to produce enough ethanol to sustain our current gasoline usage,so why even try. apparently he was also complaining about taking the corn away from the cows but some farmers called in to say there's an ethanol byproduct that is almost totally protein that the ethanol peeps sell to farmers to give to their cows (not sure if it's cheaper than corn, but it's more efficient). so glenn's still up in arms about it and here is where i get annoyed. first of all, why are we trying to sustain our current usage? shouldn't we all be trying to cut back on our energy usage? and even if we can't totally rely on the ethanol, it would help us to rely less on foreign oil, no? why is this a bad thing? another stupid thing these people were saying (this is a few days ago) is that we shouldn't have people ride bikes. because if you ride your bike more you'll eat more beef and we'll have to raise more cattle which take more energy so it's inefficient and we might as well all drive everywhere. argh. i don't understand how you can argue against saving the environment! how is using less fossil fuels a bad thing? my brother builds big wind farms so that we can use more wind energy. it's totally clean energy, and people fight his company all the time. like the wind turbines they want to put in martha's vineyard. the rich people are freaking out (still) about it. not only would they be barely visible, they're producing 100% clean energy. HOW IS THIS BAD??!!!???!!! i know that i'm just one person. and my little one person contribution to recycling, biking and using less energy aren't going to save the environment, but if we all did it, it would add up. and i just don't understand why you would argue against that.

see

this shit is why christians get a bad name. sigh.

rambling, not ranting :O)

so i was thinking about my ranting last night after the board meeting. and my issue isn't with the language. i swear. when i'm pissed, i swear a lot. and i know i need to cut down on that as i go to seminary, but that's my thing. i guess my issue was more with those feminists cutting down others because they disagreed with them and dared to say what they were thinking. this is also my issue with people like bill o'reilly and glen beck and their ilk. if you don't agree with them you're an idiot and they can call you whatever they want. just like The Coworker said, it's more about feminists cutting down other feminists for no good reason. just because i am a different kind of feminist than you doesn't make one of us a better feminist. sigh. sometimes i just want to be all hippy and say 'can't we all just get along'.

anyway, i did some quick searches and found a few essays on feminism and chiristianity, they're interesting so i thought i'd link to them here....

http://www.womenwriters.net/may2001/biblebeltfeminist.html
http://www.womenwriters.net/may2001/biblebeltfeminist2.htm

ranty mcranterson

During the course of my day I usually have some downtime. Yes I could be doing something but really it’s nice to have a little break now and then. So when I have downtime I read some mainstream blogs some of them I’ve linked to on this blog, some I have not. A lot of the blogs are feminst in nature because I do work at a feminist organization, and frequently they’ll have posts that are relevant to my job. One of the problems I have with these sites is that there doesn’t seem to be any tolerance for Christianity. I will grant you that most of the people who write in to the bloggers, or the groups they’re talking about are much more conservative than I am and are also much more evangelical that I am. I’m much more of a lead your life as an example of Christianity instead of a beat you over the head with my belief system type person. As a very liberal person I have a hard time feeling like my religion is respected. It’s almost as if because I believe in Jesus and God I’ve been duped into something and I’ll come around later. I really get sick of this patronizing attitude and it definitely turns me off to some of the more progressive sites. One of the websites I usually read is feministing dot com. It’s just a bunch of ‘feminist’ stories and some really are feminist issues, some are just people complaining about things and making anything that involves women a feminist issue (which I suppose you could argue, but I feel like that’s gratuitous). So the founder of this website wrote a book called ‘full frontal feminism’ it’s supposed to make feminism hip/cool/appealing for the younger kids who think ‘feminism’ is not a good thing. So we got this book at the center and I started reading it and it’s so hard to read. Now, I know that I tend to curse like a sailor, but this book puts me to shame. I understand where the anger comes from. It sucks that women have faced injustices and that they continue to do so. It sucks that I make less than a man would (still) it sucks that I have to pay for birth control but Viagra is a covered prescription it sucks that women are blamed for rape. Sometimes it sucks. I had started this book in the hopes of being able to recommend it to the high school kids that I work with, or even the young college kids that I’m going to be working with. And I just can’t do it. Which brings me to the reason I felt the need to vent. Apparently the author did a reading from the book and it was on tv. So a bunch of people saw it and emailed her to comment on the appearance. Some people were upset about the use of cuss words and felt that it was uncalled for, others were saying anti feminist things, others were worried about her soul. Blah blah blah. The usual crap. So she posts these comments on her site and ridicules everyone who wrote them to her. And then the people who read the site commented on that post and again ridiculed the people who wrote them. This is frustrating on so many levels. I am a feminist and a Christian. And I don’t feel like I need to pick between the two. I am also pretty darn liberal and a Christian and I don’t feel like I need to pick between those two either. And yet in the liberal sphere there’s pressure to not be a Christian and in some parts(not my church but others) there is significant pressure to be conservative. So I guess I wrote this because I’m disappointed. Disappointed that there’s not a book that I can give to my sister to show her feminism is cool, that people can’t respect each other and each others opinions, that I have to defend my Christianity/feminism/liberalism all the time.

I’ll step down from the soapbox.

where i will not be going to seminary

so i'm in the midst of searching for a seminary. there are no decisions, but definitely some front runners. a lot of schools have a dual degree program, where i can go to school for 4 years and get my masters in divinity and my masters in social work. i'm totally biased to do this. 4 years and 2 masters?!?! plus the amount of work that a pastor does with local non profit organizations and government organizations (as far as helping out on boards for housing etc) is insane. if i can get a degree to help me do that better, i'm going to do it. and if you do a dual degree program it chops a year off each individual program. so 4 years, not 6 for the degrees.anyway. so there is a school in st.louis, eden seminary which partners with washington university to do the dual thing. then mccormick which is in chicago where you can do the dual thing, but i'm not sure what secular school is involved, louisville seminary which is in louisville (duh) and partners with the university of louisville. and then there's a seminary in lancaster with no dual program and one outside of atlanta with no dual program. so those are the choices right now. obviously if dad doesn't do well after his surgery lancaster might be the only choice (it's less than 3 hours from state college) but based solely on word of mouth and websites i'm loving st.louis.plus the msw program is very well recognized and would be a stellar education.

i will not be going to seminary here
and that i know for sure ;O)
happy monday! it's soggy here in state college, with no glimmer of sunlight in the near future. so i'm amusing myself with the internet. ok...back to work!

sunday morning

i got up and went to church this morning. i've done this hundreds if not thousands of times. it's something that's just a normal part of my routine. i see friends there that i don't get to see other places, i get to experience god in a whole different way than i do monday-saturday. it helps me to reconnect and to rejuvinate for the week ahead. every day brings challenges, and while i know i could do them even if i didn't go to church, i know that i'm more able to deal with them when i do go. a friend from work posted about what church and faith mean to her and i've decided that on this blog i'm going to post different essays on church and faith and religion and everything that goes along with that. i'm working on the first post, right now it's just a bunch of paragraphs that don't make anything cohesive. i think i'm a bit tired and so my attempts at writing are instead producing disconnected drivel. so i'll just say that i've been so engrossed in harry potter land lately, that the other day when i was talking to a coworker i said i'd be getting my degree in "divination" not divinity. yup. coming to a pulpit near you!

wahoo!

i got a bike last night! here she is
i'm super excited to go ride around! i'm going to get to ride around tonight a little bit, but probably won't get to take a longer ride till sunday.

i started

to post something but it got super long and ranty, so i decided to post something else. i'm super excited because i get paid today and so this week, probably friday (the first time i have free time) i'm going to buy a bike! i've been thinking a lot about two things: how i can increase my physical activity in my daily life and how annoyed i get that i drive around state college to go places. i mean, honestly, it's like 8 miles from where i live to where my parents live. why do i need to drive there? and it's just around the corner to the store so why am i driving there? now according to my job description i have to drive to work. i have to be able to leave at any time and head to the courthouse or the hospital to meet with clients, but any other time, why do i need my car? so i've deicided to buy a bike. my hope is that i can either convince my boss that i don't need my car every day and then i can bike to work some days, or at the very least use the bike if i'm going anywhere in the evening or on a weekend. it will help me get more exercize and it is good for the environment. i mean, i'm sure i'm not a huge expender of greenhouse gasses and my commitment to the bike isn't going to make a huge impact, but it all ads up, right? i'm not sure what i'll get...the bike shop i want to go to sells giant and specialized and maybe trek, so something in one of those families :O) hope you're all having great weeks!

family zone!

so this past weekend i went to my 10th dave matthews band show! my sister and her friend and i went down to virginia to the nissan pavillion to see them. we got there around 8 and were searching for some good lawn to park on when we noticed an area of unpopulated lawn near the front so we walked over and it was the family zone.what distinguishes the family zone is that you're not allowed to smoke or drink in it. and while this is a drawback for most dmb fans, i was there with becky and megan and they don't smoke and aren't old enough to drink so we figured why not! it was almost the best lawn seats you could get, plus no stupid drunk boys bumping up against you. a win-win situation. the show was good, they played a bunch of new songs and a bunch of old songs, and the cool trumpet guy was there the whole time and he's awesome. i'll put the set list below. the whole time i was there i was thinking about how different the vibe is when you go see someone like dmb, who has like 20,000 people there, and when i go to zeno's or otto's to see my friends bands play and there are 50 people there. the energy in a crowd of 20,000 is just so palpable. it's so very different, but it's all about the music, just in a different way it seems.
it was super fun, i still think that seeing dmb live is one of my most favorite things to do, they just love the music so much and you can tell and it's infectious to listen and watch it. good times.

One Sweet World
You Might Die Trying
Hunger For The Great Light
#27
Warehouse
The Maker
Corn Bread
Shotgun
Anyone Seen The Bridge
Too Much
Sister
The Idea Of You
Bartender
Everyday
Sweet Up and Down
Louisiana Bayou
Stay (Wasting Time)

__________________

Gravedigger
Two Step

stalking is for everybody

so a few months ago i went to a stalking training. it was freaking creepy. the technology that is available now is unreal. there are cell phones that you can activate remotely and listen in to everything that the person is saying without their knowledge. this is in addition to creepy gps technology and ordinary spyware of course. so the training freaked all of us DV advocates out and we've been thinking about different things to talk with clients about in order to safety plan around the possible use of technology. so this morning a coworker said, dude check out msnbc.com so i go to msnbc.com and see a link to one of their blogs dealing with technology and stalking. http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/08/leah-lived-for-.html#posts
so i read the article which is good, and then i read the comments. you would think that everyone could agree that using technology to stalk is bad, but no the comments are a handful of morons talking about how feminism has destroyed everything, how there are a million nice guys out there why do women date abusive ones, and that really the technology isn't so advanced, so why are we worrying anyway. it astonishes me that people are so ignorant to what is really going on out there. and why are they using a piece about stalking and technology to attack feminism? argh

reactions

so dad had chemo last week. it was his third treatment and by far the one he reacted most to. he was sick wednesday night and then had to stay in the hospital thursday night because his amonia levels were high and he was out of it. he's pretty grumpy, he's retaining a lot of water and is just uncomfortable and cranky. and i can't imagine what it's like to be him right now. to be fighting cancer, fighting your own body essentially and having it change and reject you and not be able to do anything that you've done in the past. having said all of that, i don't think it gives him a free pass to do/say whatever he wants. the doctors decided that he had gotten too much morphine and sleeping medication and that's why the amonia levels were high. so last night he blames my mom for this. wants to know why she pushed his morphine button (because he asked her to because he didn't have the strength) did she push it too much, was she pushing it when he was alseep. etc. i couldn't deal with it so i just went to bed. how he could think that she would do something to hurt him. she takes off work and stays with him when he's in the hospital, she helps him into bed and makes sure he's comfortable, she bought a damn baby monitor so that he can call for her if he needs help and she's not in the room. and he sits there and wants to know why she gave him too much morphine. cause it's her fault. just like it always is. argh. why is life so messy?

blog blog

so i figure that i like reading blogs, i like writing, and i like to update the world on things i do and that i care about, so here you have it. the title is from a david letterman quote "If it wasn't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsover."

most days i feel like that :O)

i'll post on the adventures of applying to and visiting seminaries, my love of coffee and old mystery shows, random feminist and liberal stuff i find interesting and probably cute stories about the 3 and a half year old i live with (she's not mine)

happy wednesday people! see you back here soon!