Inspi(RED) to Write

So here I am, sitting at Caribou, free drink in hand (thanks Facebook apps!) and thinking about how much I really love my life right now. Even though I have no job, no money, and I'm living at home, I have great friends, some great family, (*cough*, jk I love you all) and great caffeine. 

I have recently started a diary of my own. My friend Jess and I decided we were going to keep a diary of random things and read parts to each other for accountability. Not that we're exactly struggling with anything, just as a way to help each other live a more healthy life, mind, body and spiritually. Getting a diary has always been a struggle for me because I need to find the perfect little book to spill my guts to and keep me motivated to keep writing in it. I search for a diary like a look for school supplies. My one major rule is NO RED. Don't get me wrong, I love the color red. It's just that as the years have gone by I've seen so much red on my school work and had red be associated with a negative bank account that I really don't want to see it more in my free time, or in the case of school work-before I even turn in an assignment. It just doesn't settle right. I go for more of a plain black or brown with minimal decoration on it, usually an inlet or engraving of some kind in the leather. Surely nothing shiny or overly sweet, that is for what's inside the diary, what I write. Also, there can be NO LINES. I want room to draw, the freedom to express myself without words and to draw little designs of nothing in particular whilst I'm supposed to be paying attention to a lecture. 

So, you can imagine my surprise when I ended up loving the little diary Jess gave me: a "pocket sized" RED faux-suede diary with a medium sized rhinestone heart on the top middle front of it, complete with LINED pages. And I love it! I have successfully written in it four consecutive days now, skipped the fifth and today is the sixth. I'm doing it and not forgetting-Huzzah! I like this little book of mine because as much as I thought I was resisting these attributes of my diary, they fully somehow describe me. I've always had this secret flair for something bright and to have this eye-catching spark about me (which I explain in the red). As for the rhinestoned heart...come on, I used to figure skate. I'm biologically designed to love a lil' sparkle here and there. And the lines? Well as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes I really need order to motivate me and to keep my schedule and priorities in line. I'd love to say I'm a completely free spirit and can do things on my own time and will, which I can most of the time, but sometimes I just need that extra push for organization to get me to do what I'm supposed to in a timely manner. So now that you all know about the design of my diary, I shall tell you what's in it! 

(Just KIDDING, like I'd ever do that.)

So on page 5, there is this great description of this one guy I like...

Thanks for reading!

The Boxcar Children: Corrupting Today's Youth-a sarcastic satire

Many parents in today’s culture worry about what kind of a world their children will grow up in. Will they be able to tell right from wrong, will they remember not to talk to strangers, will they be able to manage their bank accounts, respect their elders, and sync their electronics? But is there something more sinister than those violent Veggie Tale video games that are destroying the minds of today’s youth? The answer is yes. It is the previously acclaimed book series made popular in elementary school nationwide written by Gertrude Chandler Warner: The Boxcar Children. These books are a dangerous example to the youth of today by running away from home, disrespect of elders, skipping school, their blatant disregard for law, even going as far as taking the law into their own hands instead of going to a trusted authority figure for help.

First off, this riff-raff of a group of children runs away from their parents to scavenge and live of nature in the forest outside a nearby town of Greenfield. Sure, their parents are dead, but that’s no excuse to run wild around in a forest and living in an abandoned boxcar and using a can and a stick for a soup ladle. I mean really. What twelve year old girl *cough, Jessie* knows the correct boiling point at which water is purified to drink or make soup? That’s probably the whole reason Violet gets sick and has to stay at grandfather’s house, it’s not due to a fever, Jessie knowingly gives her family poisoned food to get rid of them, only this attempt went awry and now she’s stuck with them all for the rest of her life. That’s natural selection and survival of the fittest right there. It’s practically a regular CSI: Greenfield, Horatio Cane, we need you to set these kids on the straight and narrow.

Second, when they finally meet their grandfather after Violet’s suspicious illness, they completely act like he’s not there and treat him like a convict fresh out of prison. The four of them stick together incessantly and fail to branch out or attempt to make friends. They ignore and are standoffish with their grandfather’s housekeeper and secretly hate her cooking, giving little hints as to the nature of their opinion. Even at school, the children’s teachers have to rein in their behavior, constantly setting up meetings with their grandfather to discuss his lack of discipline in his household.

Speaking of school, that brings us to the third point: the boxcar children set a horrid example for today’s youth by always skipping school to hang out together and participate in recreational activities instead of doing schoolwork like the rest of children their ages. It is a mystery how these children appear to be so educated based on their school day to vacation time ratio. In every book they are on vacation or are conveniently “on school break”. I don’t think so. These children are irresponsible trouble-makers who take a month off in the middle of the school year to go on a cruise and live on an island. Their teachers give them make up work, but they leave it by the wayside, swimming, tanning, and making googley-eyes at boys. (The girls that is. The boys act all mature and “help out” around the ship. We know they’re just scoping out all the good rooms to take for themselves.)

Next, these children have a blatant disregard for local and governmental law, even to the point of taking the law into their own hands and attempting to apprehend random criminals they think are “up to no good”. These kids are just a bunch of crazies! Everywhere they go they seem to notice “mysteries” and “inconsistencies” in their chosen vacation location. They should not be demonstrating this incessant curiosity toward there surroundings, it’s unnatural, not to mention mentally unhealthy. In one book, the children are specifically told not to look into some strange activity and even threatened with a scary note, but what to they do? They gather up some matches and a flashlight and go looking for clues in the dark, at midnight, in a city square they are unfamiliar with. Very irresponsible and careless. It doesn’t even matter that no one ever gets hurt and the criminals are always caught red handed, these four boxcar children are just so stupid and inconsiderate for others and the law in general!

Another example of their lack of regard for law is that Henry, who is only fourteen mind you, “drives the family station wagon”. And he has a job which means he obviously lied about his age on his application and continues to pretend he is older than he actually is. It is illegal to drive a car alone if you are under the age of sixteen, except for some rural farm areas located north of the Boondocks, as it is illegal to work under a certain age without parental or guardianship permission. And since we all know Henry’s parents are dead, and there is no mention of his grandfather signing any permission slip of any kind, we can only logically come to the conclusion that Henry lied on his application for his job and drivers license. Is this the kind of role model we want for our children today?

There are many, many other examples of the moral corruption of these children and their lifestyles located in these sinister books, but these are only a handful. Books like these, and especially this particular book series, are corrupting today’s youth teaching that it is okay to run away from your parents, disrespect one’s elders, skip school, and disregard the law or enforce it yourself. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner (and authors after) are corrupting the minds and morals of today’s youth and we shall not stand for it! Give them something better to focus their attention to like drugs and alcohol, at least the consequences for those are positive and predictable: coolness and elevated social standing among peers.

Twilight, spring, and the Northwest

Hooray for spring!

I am very happy that it is officially spring according to the calendar, although I'm not sure the weather has changed accordingly. I was recently in Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon and it was quite nice there. Very breezy and a little chilly, but there was NO SNOW. Even though it rained about seven of the ten days I was there I still loved it. It made you really appreciate the sun when it was out. I just LOVED the northwest, it is seriously so beautiful there! If you have ever read the description of Washington in the popular Twilight books it is EXACTLY like that. When I got there, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about the weather but I grew to enjoy the difference in it from what I was used to back home in Minnesota. 

Wow, there is just so much I want to talk about and so little brain energy to put it all into sentences, but I shall try. Let me first explain why I was in the Northwest. I play cello in my university's orchestra an we were on tour around the NW playing a total of 11 concerts in a week at different churches and Christian schools in Washington and Oregon. So needless to say I spent most of my spring break dressed in concert black and on a coach bus, but I think it is safe to say we all had a great time and got to know one another much better. Anywho, The first church we played at was very welcoming and our host family's house, or condo, was pretty sweet. When we are on tour we couple up with another person to stay at host family's houses each night, sometimes there are four of us or more staying in one house. It's usually a good experience and we have a lot of fun. At this first house we managed to get our own rooms and thus our own beds. (usually you end up sharing two to a bed) The beds I think must have had that Tempur-Pedic style foam on them because they were SO comfy! The only reason I'm talking about this is because you don't usually end up with great mattresses when you're on tour, it could even be a cot on the floor. And since the NW is two hours behind MN time we were all super tired after our first concert because we also flew in that day and had about five hours on the bus so we just zonked out before 10:30 Seattle time.

We did one or two concerts each day and had about two and a half free days while we were there just to tour the area and see the sights. Most of us went downtown Seattle or to Pike's Place Market where they have all sorts of venders and things for sale from flowers to fish. Right down the road from there is the original Starbucks, which if you didn't know, got it's name from Starbuck who is a character from the novel Moby Dick. There were also a ton or street performers and musicians and people who did random stuff on sidewalks hoping to earn some extra cash. Most of them were pretty cool, but a few of them were pretty sketch-ish so we didn't linger much. 

We were free to travel anywhere on our own or in groups of however many we wanted. For the most part we were in groups, but since there were only 24 students and three adults, the groups were smaller and not so touristy. 

We played in a variety of venues including sanctuaries, gymnasiums, and rooms we thought would not hold the number of people they did. It was very interesting to see each new place and to get used to the layout, find our changing rooms, the bathrooms and our way around the place in general. Each new place we played at provided it's own unique sound to our music, its own spacing problems for where we were going to sit and play our concerts and a new place to put the piano and keyboard we needed. Oh, I forgot to mention, for this tour we were only a string ensemble because the band was on tour in the Midwest at the same time as we were in the NW so we could not use any winds or percussion. We did however have two wonderful pieces played with piano, one was by Gerald Finzi and the other was a movement of a concerto by Ernest Block. the Finzi piece is just so beautiful, as our conductor Dr. Lynda Bradley-Vacco describes it, it sounds as if it could be the soundtrack to any 18th century British women's literature like Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, or Sense and Sensibility. It is this intimate dialogue between instruments and is so delicate yet has such a beautiful theme. At the time it was published, it did not have a title so the printer named it "Eclogue" which means "a short poem or pastoral dialogue" which describes it perfectly. 

A few other stories I have include visiting a glass museum, going across the Tacoma Narrows bridge, doing The Morning Show on the bus (I might describe this later), having a couple weird homestays, having fun at hotels, having the stomech flu and cold passed around the orchestra, a huge bottle of Purell, musical confessions, B.O.S.S. nominations, the Holy Bow, getting cash stolen out of our wallets at a church during a concert (later replaced graciously by the church), a totally awesome homestay in which there were five of us in one giant house WITH wireless, meeting awesome people, seeing a sign for Port Angelos, having a host mom who's son-in-law lived in Forks, being in Washington while Twilight was released on DVD, participating in "The Great Debate: Which is Better, Harry Potter or Twilight?" at the Seatlle public library, having only three guys on the trip and only one of them single, and  too many more to mention. 

Basically it was AMAZING. And up 'til now I have never visited a place where I have considered to be a place I might want to live someday. The NW just made the list.

Thanks for reading!

PS (perhaps more to come on this orchestra tour subject, I haven't decided)