Prayer

I've been thinking lately about prayer and what makes it worthwhile.  If I think logically about prayer, it doesn't seem to make sense at all.  I mean if God is all knowing, all powerful and has a plan, why would I want to ask for things that could possibly mess up that plan?  At best I could feel neglected with unanswered prayers and at worst, he could actually give me what I wanted and mess up his perfect plan.  But I discovered prayer isn't really about asking for things.  Prayer is more about shaping me and my character than changing the mind of God. 

If I pray alone, it helps me to be grateful for the things I have, it helps me to think about the needs of others and keep them in my thoughts, and it helps me voice my concerns about whatever is going on in my life.  Sometimes it gives me a sense of direction and purpose.  If I pray with another person, it makes me feel less burdened to know that someone else is involved in my concerns.  If I pray in church, it gives me a sense of community and a reminder that we are all in this together. 

The most valuable format of prayer I experienced was during my time in Greenville.  A person would offer up an issue in their life and the pastor would simply say "For this person, who is dealing with this..." and the congregation would respond with "Lord have Mercy".  We didn't tell God what we prefer he do about the situation, it was simply offering the problem to God. 

What I get out of philosophy (specifically Plato)

So, I'm doing this paper about Plato and trying my best to adequately explain his theory of the Forms to such a degree as to receive an A on my paper and I realized, my cat serves as the perfect example with which to demonstrate said theory.  My kitten, lets call her Olive (cause that's her name), partakes in the Form of cuteness.  Now Olive herself is not Cuteness because she of completely different substance than that of a baby chicken which also partakes in the Form of cuteness.  Also, Olive cannot be the Form of cuteness itself because she also partakes of many other Forms such as whiteness, kittenness, and claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness.  Some Forms are necessary for other Forms to be present, for example, Olive must necessarily partake in both cuteness and claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness at the same time.  If she partook in the later without partaking in the former, she would get kicked out of the house because no one would have efficient cause to put up with her shit.  Therefore, when Olive stops partaking in the Form of cuteness (as she grows older), she will also cease to partake in claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness.

Olive partaking in the Form of Get-in-between-me-and-Jon-Stewartness

Just a thought

Five times a day Muslims stop what they're doing to pray.  That level of devotion amazes me.  I forget to pray for 2 weeks if I happen to miss one day of church. 

The purpose of religion should be to order and structure our lives.  It is sad to me that we have reduced it to merely a set of beliefs.  In the end, what are beliefs?  Practically, they mean nothing because no one knows for sure anything about the mysteries of life. 

I think Religion can be magical but only when we let it go and let it be completely mysterious.  That is why I love it, not because I can grasp it tightly but because I have no idea what it all means.

The Number One Threat to my Blog

BEARS!  The bears are threatening my recreational writing career.  They use their psychic bear power (with a slight mix of their razor sharp death claws) to prevent me from keeping up on my blog.  You can tell by this picture that this bear has malicious stop-Angela-from-writing intentions by the way he causally sniffs a dead tree pretending he has no idea who I am. 

Or it could be that I've gotten lazy.  Or that I had about 500 pages of reading to do for class last week.  I normally don't have THAT much, but classes are keeping me pretty busy.  The messed up part is I only have two of them.  If I only had 2 undergrad classes, I could write a novel in my spare time, but instead I'm trying to fill a couple paragraphs of blog after a month of school. 

John and I did have a fun summer.  We saw a lot of bears as evidenced by this picture of a bear.  One of them came right up to John and introduced himself.  Or he might have been pissed off because he was trying to catch a baby dear and he was distracted by a giant man on the side of the building. 

There was also lots of campfires.  Lots..... of campfires.  But those aren't very exciting to talk about.  Here's more bears. 

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D (Exhibit C's twin.... or the same bear)

Exhibit.... oh wait, that's my boyfriend

Tampons Don't Grow on Trees

It's amazing to me how some people can drive 2 hours from civilization to 'get away from it all' and enjoy nature and then be completely distraught when a small middle-of-nowhere market doesn't have something they apparently can't live without.  If something is that essential to someone's well being, it seems like they would have thought to pack it before they headed 2 hours up a mountain.  There is no Wal-Mart in the woods.  We just don't have the resources to knock down some 1,000 year old Sequoia trees to build one yet. 

We've been out of ibuprofen and Tylenol pretty much since I started working a few weeks ago and I feel like I hear about it everyday.  Most of these people only seem minorly inconvenienced and I feel kind of bad for them because I love my Advil.  However, the biggest tragedy lately is that we ran out of tampons.  To some people, this is inexcusable.  One lady was so annoyed and upset, I felt like she was accusing me of withholding them from her on purpose as if I enjoyed seeing her suffer.  She was complaining that all we had was pads and "do you have any idea how hard it is to hike in these?"  I don't think she has any idea how long it takes for delivery trucks to make their way up the hill.  Shit happens.  We run out and it takes like a week or longer to get more. 

Even so, I can forgive a cranky bleeding woman for getting annoyed with me but the most perplexing thing to me is when we run out of large ice.  There were many people who seemed extremely put out and inconvenienced when I told them we were out of 20 pound bags of ice.  As someone was buying three 7-pound bags (which are the SAME price per pound), they asked "when are you getting more 20 pound bags in?"  to which I replied "I'm not sure" but my eyes said "what does it matter?  It's the same fucking ice." 

We also ran out of marshmallows.  Surprisingly, no one seemed quite as upset over that as not having a big ass bag of ice.  Next time someone bitches about ice, I should offer to open three 7-pound bags and dump them into a garbage bag so that the ice is all together in one bag.  Apparently that's very important.  Ice must work better when in the company of more ice.  I had no idea it was such a social creature.  I could've have sworn it was just frozen water. 

We'll probably run out of milk soon.  The only bitching I'll tolerate is from John because we go through it pretty fast. 

-Angela

Living with Giants

(I actually wrote this post about 3 days ago.  I was just able to get to the internet to post it tonight.  I realize it's kind of all over the place.  There was just so much going on.)

John resting after I dragged him to the top of Moro Rock

Here I am on July 7th in the year 2011 and somehow I have made my way back to Sequoia National Park for the 4th summer in a row.  This was originally supposed to be a one time thing but after all the moving around during and after college, this place has become something of a second home for me.  It is reminiscent of the home I grew up in because I am surrounded by a forest but the giant sequoia's give it a special "there's no other place like it" feel.  They act as giant guardians making me feel safe and secure. 

Ever since beginning college, security is something that I have missed and longed for.  In recent months, I have found such security in the form of another giant: my 6 foot 8 inch soul-mate, John Goodin.  We had planned to spend the summer apart for financial reasons, but after only one week apart, he is back in my life and working for the same company in my second home. 

John drove me to Sequoia and left me here last Tuesday.  The very next day I took up my old post as cashier at Lodgepole Market.  I picked the wrong day to start.  After going through about 3 hours of filling out paper work and listening to rambling speeches from the HR manager, I began working in the market at about a quarter to 4 in the afternoon.  That day just happened to be inventory day.  I didn't clock out until almost 4:30 in the morning.  I'm good friends with the manager so I didn't feel shy complaining to him, which I did.... a lot. 

The next few days were a bit challenging on my feet because they weren't used to standing for so long.  Everyone knew about it because I complained so they would ask me for updates when I would go into work and sometime toward the end of the day.  It probably didn't help that I had dragged John to the top of Moro Rock on the first night we were here.  We watched the sunset. 

So, on my fifth day of work, the manager, Vince, informed me that John called him and wanted to come work at Sequoia.  John found out that his job at Target was less than half time hours.  Needless to say this made my whole day even though we were crazy busy because it was 4th of July weekend. 

Later that day we had a fire alarm and I got to stand outside and stop customers from going inside.  The next day, I worked the second half of my shift at the Wuksachi Gift shop.  Anyone who has had the privilege of reading the notes I write while working understands how extremely boring that job is.  The day after that, we had a crazy downpour and the storm drain was clogged so the parking lot of flooded and approaching the store front.  A few hours later about half of the power went out and mine was the only register open.  Somewhere in there John arrived from Sacramento all sweaty and tired. 

I got my first day off yesterday.  John did orientation and we set up our room.  Today is his first day of work.  He's moving large piles of wood.  I hear there's a lot of it although I have not seen these piles with my own eyes. 

Now we have about 8 more weeks until we both go home and start school.  I'm excited that I don't have to spend those 8 weeks apart.  I get to have my job and my boy and live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  I'm feeling pretty good right now. 



-Angela

Not falling off the face of the earth.... yet

Forgive me readers for I have slacked.  It has been 14 days since my last blog.  I accuse myself of the following negligence. 

I've noticed that the dates between blog posts is getting progressively longer and longer.  I'm not sure why this is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm loosing the ability to amuse myself.  Or perhaps my abilities have just fallen asleep from boredom.  Although a couple days ago I felt totally inspired to write something that I deem unfit for posting.  I wrote it anyway.  Then I felt sad that I had a creative burst of talent and nothing to show for it.  Then I started writing this post.... two days ago.  The opening sentence originally stated that it had been 12 days since my last post.  With each passing hour, my offense became greater and greater. 

In my defense, I'm on these antibiotics right now (which I started on Wednesday) that make me feel consistently slightly nauseous.  It kinda feels like when you're just starting to get sick and you know it's going to get worse, but it never does.  Sometimes I can ignore it, but it's always there.  However, two days ago when I started writing, I wasn't aware of this side effect and all I knew was that I felt sick and didn't feel like writing anymore.  It was yesterday morning when it suddenly dawned on me that it was the pills I'm taking. 

On a completely unrelated note (because I just decided this post isn't completely random enough), I applied for this job a few days ago that would be basically me proof-reading stuff.  Along with my application and resume, I was required to submit a writing sample to prove how absolutely amazing I am at mastering the english language.  I selected an essay question I wrote for Ethics class which only had one error in it.  I hope they don't hold that against me.  Just kidding.  I corrected and re-saved it before I submitted it for their review.  I pray to God this job allows me to use spell check because I just had to correct at least 3 words that were underlined in red including "reviewal" which, when marked, I realized wasn't even a word. 

On a tangential note, wouldn't it be great if there was a job that involved making up words?  I think I'd be pretty great at that.  We don't have enough words; we need more. 

I don't have a good picture for this post.  I don't know if I could even imagine what image I could possibly display.  I guess I could put a picture of my medication, but that would just be depressing.  Perhaps a picture of me in a Catholic confessional.  If only I had one of those.  I've never even been inside one so I'm certain that picture doesn't even exist.  I mean, it could if I could locate some kind of Photoshop master.... WHICH I TOTALLY AM!  But that might take me another 14 days to put together.  Probably not going to happen. 

Angela

Return of the Angela Trap

Yesterday John and I decided that in lieu of a stroll around the park (which we try to do everyday it's not pouring and/ or freezing) we were going to grab a blanket and go lay down under a shady tree in the central grassy area of the park.  So before we even make it to the park, I spotted a cat walking on the other side of the street a few house lengths ahead of us.  We watched as the cat patiently waited for traffic and then cautiously crossed the street.  She then proceeded to head into the park until she made it to the far side (and we conveniently headed in the same direction until we caught up with her). 

It was at this point when the cat became aware of our presence and seemed to be slowing down to allow an interaction when the question arose of whether this was the same feline of the previously documented Angela Trap.  After we were able to pet this kitty for a bit, we decided that in fact it was.  This was a chronic Angela Trap that probably made her way to the park on every sunny day to hang out in the dirt and hunt some unsuspecting birds.  We have frequently been spotting some delicious looking quail and while it would most likely be illegal for us to kill and eat one, no one is going to blame a cat for doing so. 

Even so, the adorable Angela Trap did not take advantage of the succulent quail on our watch.  Instead she found her way over to our blanket after we had settled down (conveniently close to where she had stopped) to take advantage of our abundant pets.  And since we had come to the park with the intent of laying around anyway, I was able to pet her as much as I wanted without John looking at me impatiently. 

We ended up hanging out on our blanket for about an hour and a half and during that time the Angela Trap spent her time going from laying under a tree to coming back for pets.  She presented the perfect opportunity for us to take pictures of her so that I might post them on my blog, but I had previously complained about John bringing his phone to the park (and hence the camera) and I somehow managed to end up with one of the few boyfriends who actually listens to me.  I guess the best solution would be for me to bring my phone/ camera because I'm never tempted to text while I'm walking.  That way if I am correct in thinking this cat is in the daily habit of hanging out at the park, I will eventually obtain a picture of her.  In the meantime, here is a visual approximation of what she looks like. 

Charlotte doing her best Trap impression

This is actually Charlotte, our lovable long time stray from Georgetown.  Trap is skinner than Charlotte with no white on her. 

Anywhozers, we decided that if we were going to be seeing this cat a lot, she needed a name.  To achieve this, we simply dropped the "Angela" from "Angela Trap" and simply named her Trap.  Real pics coming soon.  Hopefully. 

Angela

Master of EVERYTHING (that interests me)

The other night I was on my way home from my weekly meeting/ bible study at Old Soul, driving down the freeway (previously my sworn enemy) and I started thinking about my imminent return to higher education this fall.  For some reason driving anywhere for longer than 2 minutes by myself sparks the contemplative centers in my mind.  Probably because it's quiet and there's no one to interrupt me.  Also I think there's just something about driving down a road that triggers a symbolic image of my future and were I'm going.  Of course with that logic, I should have had plenty of time to plan my entire future when I lived in Georgetown when it took 30 minutes to get anywhere.  But I digress. 

So on this particular 15 minute drive, I was thinking about all the different majors I had previously considered and where those would have taken me.  I then had a revelation.  I want to do EVERYTHING.  I wish I could just spend 10 years or so in school and learn every subject I want and eventually be a multi-subject expert.  Then I could be a professor that teaches five different subjects and/or be a more dynamic writer that can speak on a wide range of subjects. 

Alas, it's not really practical to spend that much time in school before starting a career.  However, I hope to have the opportunity to continue learning these things throughout my life, if only as a hobby.  Then by the end of my life, I will be a Religion/ Philosophy/ Psychology/ Graphic Design/ Digital Arts/ English/ Theater/ Baking expert.  Perhaps I can roll them all into one and come up with some new discipline that other students would then study as a major in college.  That way I could live off the patent rights.  I'm fairly certain it doesn't work that way, but it sounded good. 

I'll let everyone know how this works out. 

This is how my brain will organize all that information

Angela

I'm a female?!??

Lately I've been finding that my emotional response to fictional and/ or televised material to be significantly heightened.  Usually my sadness response was limited to well crafted movies and that scene in Scrubs where Dr. Cox thinks he's at his sons birthday party but he's really at his best friends funeral (swear to God, saddest moment on television I've ever seen), but even in those situations, I only ever THOUGHT about crying, I'd never actually shed any tears.  However, recently there have been MANY sad things on TV and I've even had a full blown meltdown during a movie.  I think I've figured out why. 

I am now in a relationship.  I think since I've started dating John, I have been put in the role of girlfriend and my body suddenly realized "OMG!  I'm a female!  I should act like one!".  It's like my hormones were laying dormant pretending that they didn't exist and giving me a false sense of sanity.  But then they were called upon to fulfill their destiny of turning me into an emotionally compromised crazy person.  Now I'm the kind of person who starts balling in the middle of "The Last Unicorn" because the main character is having identity issues.  And just the other day, I had to stop watching a show about this girl who hordes animals because it was so sad it made me want to kill myself. I swear my feminine hormones are just throwing a wild party and laughing at me while I cry at every sad story on TV. 

I wish I had some kind of master control switch that could turn them off at will.  I'm sensing a great business opportunity here.  Someone should invent this.  Females and boyfriends everywhere will thank you and forever be in your debt. 

Me being innocent and carefree before I realized I'm insane

Angela