I've just been on the World Vision website, and have signed up to sponsor a child. Here she is:
It's pretty amazing that something like this can be set up in a couple of minutes with a little bit of typing and clicking a few buttons.The internet is an amazing tool.
I came to the decision this morning - a few things have been running through my head, namely:
Could I really look a kid like this in the eye one day and say "Sorry, going out for a meal with my friends once a month was more important than giving you an education"?
The song 'Me and Theng' by the Lads (the version from 'Whoa', not 'The Lads' - the former is reflective, the latter is ... the less said the better).
Some Bible verses ... in particular Matthew 25:34-45 and Proverbs 3:27, which says:
"Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act"
Yeah. That seems pretty relevant.
I'm confident about sponsoring through World Vision because I have complete trust in them as an organisation. They're well-established, have an extremely good reputation, and they really know what they're doing. 97% of their staff are employed in their country of origin (see here) - I think that is definitely the right way to do things so as to actually understand people and meet their needs. I also support them because they're a Christian organisation - but note that they absolutely do NOT proselytise, or discriminate between people of different faiths (see here). This also seems to me to be the right way to do things. Let people know that your faith motivates you to be compassionate and to try to make a difference, but be completely professional and non-discriminatory.
I should be getting a pack about Child Sponsorship through the post in about a week (so I'll have it in couple of weeks, since it'll go to my home address, not Uni). I'm looking forward to it :)
I know I'm a bit late getting on board - Fairtrade Fortnight started on Monday. But some stuff happened today that made me rethink my responsibility to the 1.4 billion people on this planet living in poverty, and as a first step I'm going to spend the next week (i.e. until about 10pm next Friday) only buying fairtrade products. Now I know that this isn't a sensible long-term solution (as in, if I only live on fairtrade products I will be living off muesli / bananas / chocolate / coffee / tea / mangoes, which sounds nice for a bit but ultimately unbalanced) but it's something I want to try to make myself more aware - aware of where I spend money when I don't need to, and aware of what the range of fairtrade products now available is.
I'll be supplementing this with the perishable stuff I currently own (food wastage doesn't help anybody), but not replacing that when it goes - so e.g. I'll have bread for the next couple of days. I'm going to try not to open packets of things that I have but that could keep until after next Friday, probably with the exception of vegetables, for obvious health reasons. I'll post whatever I buy on here, to keep me honest.
I'm also starting to think about sponsoring a child through World Vision. Something to ponder ... £18 a month. That's, like, one curry and one pub lunch, right? I could give that up to put a kid in the third world through school.
Recently, I think God's been teaching me about sitting back and shutting up.
It's interesting, how things fall together. Of course it could all just be coincidence and there might be no meaning to it, but I think there is some meaning ... and in a way it almost doesn't matter. If 'life' leads to a series of coincidences that teach me something, and God is the architect of life, then it's still God teaching me, even if not in a totally hands-on way ... (this position is probably only logically defensible with quite a lot of hand-waving. I'm not claiming it's rigorous)
It does feel funny, though. I feel like maybe God's got some cosmic checklist that he's leading me along - I can almost hear a pen ticking off boxes.
Last term it was learning to reach out and trust people and ask for help when I need it. Earlier this term it was learning to love people for the right reasons and with the right motives - because they are lovely and have great value and are made in his image - even if there were things I found tricky to deal with. Currently it's learning to sit back and shut up and put others' needs above my own - just because *I* am not enjoying / not getting anything out of something that's going on, that doesn't mean that it isn't a valuable activity, and I need to be able to keep my thoughts to myself and be supportive. I don't know if that lesson's finished yet.
Today has been a long day. Not in a bad, over-long day I want to end ... just a long one. I guess that's what happens when you get up early in the morning (well, 7:10, which is only early to a student but at least is not late) and go jogging? (Jogging is going well though :) on Sunday while I was out bits of it were starting to be great fun - rather than just something that is okay that is good for me and pleasant to have done afterwards because I feel stronger). Ah well, another hour and a half or so of work, and then I can get to bed and today will be over, a day well-executed.
Some of today's riddles:
-why, when I have previously had blood pressure readings of sort of 148-100ish (didn't see the actual numbers, it was at a nurse appt) can I not get my blood pressure above 120 - 80?*
-why is intelligent television important? (went to a talk about this)
-why is our algebraic topology lecturer setting us questions about stuff he hasn't answered properly? (answers on postcards please)
Hope other people are having similarly productive days to mine.
Take care,
--Carol
*NB obviously this is a good thing, I don't want to have silly-high blood pressure. Mine now seems normal, I think I just get nervous when I'm at the doctor's having it taken - they lent me a machine to take home for a couple of days, so I could take readings myself in normal situations and see what happened. But it's odd that I've taken my blood pressure half a dozen times today including attempts to raise it (e.g. right after exercising, not relaxing, drinking caffienated tea) and they've varied between 99 - 74 to 120 - 80. Mostly around the 110 - 70 mark.
there's a post brewing about this ... and it is not this post. This is, as it were, the Post that Comes Before.
I've been ruminating for a while on the idea that life isn't about balance between things, but instead about being in tension between things. The idea of balance makes me feel like I'm on a tightrope and there's an obvious correct path and that all other choices lead to bad things. The idea of tension makes me feel like I'm ... like this: http://doctorwhotoys.net/cassandra.jpg - but less of a brain in a jar and more just being pulled every which way. But also like I'm designed to be pulled every which way.
Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be
(Dare You to Move, Switchfoot)
Examples of such tension:
Between conservative and liberal theology (I have sympathies on both sides)
Between how it is and how it should be - wanting to change the world, but also needing to accept how it really is and work from there
Between confiding in people and not burdening them
Between the drive for unity and the very real obstacles to unity which generally deserve attention
I don't feel I'm expressing myself very well here. I guess this is part of why this isn't the post that I feel I will eventually write, this is just some of the thinking. Another thing I feel about tension is that there is no obvious choice, there are no easy answers, there are maybe no right answers - which is where I'm slightly frustrated with my answers above, because they don't exhibit that properly. For me, tension between the sort of person I am now and the sort of person I want to be doesn't count, because I don't have a good reason to stay as I am now (things like 'change is hard' are not *good* reasons), but I have much reason to change. But things like tension between elements of conservative and liberal Christianity - I wouldn't want to say that anyone is right or wrong there. And I can see good arguments for going both ways. And I don't think I personally will fully go either way. And I think that it's important to be standing there, stretching across the gap, listening and learning from both and in some ways holding things together because we have a continuum of beliefs, not a dichotomy.
I don't mean to sound like this is all about theology, either; it's not. But I had other examples and for the moment I've forgotten them. I will revisit this.
Today's point is: don't despise what you already know.
This is something I find really hard.
I tend to look at problems like this: if I can't do them, they're difficult, and I'll admire other people who are able to do them. If I can do them, then they're easy, so it's not at all impressive that I'm able to do them.
So there's this instanteneous jump between the moment when I can't do something and the moment when I can, and at that point I go from thinking that the problem is hard and worthy and valuable, to thinking that it can't be, because I did it.
See the problem here?
My self-image does not include the concept that I can do hard things.
Another related problem (with my perception, this is not a problem in and of itself) - there are always people who know more than I do. You'd think that as I'm in my third year, getting to the end of my degree, that actually the majority of the people I know would either know about the same amount of maths as me, or else less. But while that is probably true, that's not what my mind focuses on. Instead of noticing the vast majority of first-years who indeed, know much less maths than me, I notice the couple who are brilliant and manage to either know more maths than me (okay, I only know one of these) or who are able to blag their way through more complicated maths than I am (this being easier, and since I don't know the maths in question I don't know if they're talking rubbish or not). Instead of stopping to notice all the things I've learned, I notice the 4th years and PhD students who (obviously!) know a lot more than I do.
This really isn't very useful.
And so what I'm trying to advocate to myself ... is more focusing on the things I know. Sure, I still have a lot to learn. But pretending that everything I've learnt so far is trivial is a) unhelpful and b) completely false. I need to have more confidence in the maths I know, and to think of my accomplishments as worthwhile, not as trivial by definition because I managed to do them. Yeah.
(Properly, of course, I should have posted this yesterday. But yesterday was a very full day, and I didn't get a chance to.)
Lent was something that I found interesting when we moved to the UK 7-8 years ago. We don't 'do' Lent in New Zealand, really. I mean, I didn't go to an Anglican / Catholic / Orthodox Church back in NZ, so it's entirely possible (and indeed I think fairly likely) that those churches did keep up the tradition - but here it's different. It's enough of a part of popular culture that lots of things happen for pancake day, and lots of non-religious people give up stuff for lent - as an exercise in willpower, I guess (which is no bad thing).
One of the reasons yesterday was such a long day is that I got up early in the morning to get to an 8am Ash Wednesday Eucharist service. I've never been to one before, and it was a very valuable experience. I was struck by two parts of the service, and I'm going to end with those:
firstly, at the imposition of ashes: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin, and be faithful to Christ.
and secondly, at the end of the service: I invite you, therefore, to observe a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.
In this post I'm going to go a little further into my reasons for starting this series of posts - and also give a little bit of background about my current situation, which (obviously) affects how I see and experience study / work-life balance / time management / all that jazz. I think this is useful - it'll help allow you to see why I make some of the choices I make, and to understand why I might emphasise one issue and completely ignore another, for example.
So, reasons for wanting to write about excogitation. I'm going to be writing out stuff that I already know - why bother?
Firstly, I think there is great value in affirming and repeating things that you know to be true. It's easy to ignore stuff because you think you know it; if said 'stuff' is important to you then this is a bad idea. Couples reiterate their love for one another, many Churches confess their faith regularly in the Creed, and if I could think of a third example I'd have done the whole 'rule of threes' thing which is supposed to be good for persuasive arguments, but oh well, I can't (at the moment, anyway).
This is especially important if the surrounding culture doesn't particularly affirm your values / beliefs. If everyone around you acts like sports is the most important thing ever, and your top priority is sports, that's great. If your top priority is art but other people act confused when you mention it, appear to think it's pointless, and ask why you're not in the netball team instead - not so good. And in that latter situation you need to be telling yourself that art is important.
Secondly, I've read a reasonable number of books that in some way pertain to learning / knowledge / study habits / sleep / diet / exercise - and probably many more articles and leaflets and things. The collection of principles that I think make sense and work and fit my life, my personality, and my situation - it's not to be found in any one place. Unless I put it in one place. So that's what I'm doing.
Thirdly, reviewing all of this and trying to prioritise it means that I'm revisiting and reexamining all my assumptions about how to learn, how to study, how to manage time / relationships / projects - everything. This in itself is also a useful exercise.
So now for a bit of background: I'm in my final year of an undergraduate mathematics course at a very good (and fairly highly pressured) university. I'm married to the wonderful Chris - we have a LDR during term time. I'm actively involved in several societies, including a Christian small group that I'm currently running. I've had full selection of which courses to take this year, which means that I'm actively interested all the courses I'm studying (luckily - i.e. none of them turned out to be uninteresting after I'd chosen) - there's nothing I'm taking because it's compulsory. My work tends to be hard (obviously) and fairly often tricky / creative - there's barely any rote work. I have a small coursework component to my course, and apart from that everything depends on 12 hours of exams I will be taking this summer (the degree only rests on the 3rd year results).
I have a reasonable amount on my plate. I do actually have time for everything this term - I'm taking slightly fewer courses than I did last term and none of the lecturers are disastrous (out of 5 last term, I reckon 2 count as disastrous and one as dodgy, and only 2 as good - this term I'm taking 4 courses and all 4 lecturers are good (one makes mistakes in what he writes down, but they're so blatant as to be ridiculous so you notice them and they're generally easy to correct)). Provided I work hard and smart, I'm capable of a good result. That's the aim.
I've been thinking for a few days about doing a study-themed series of posts on the blog (more on why later). And I've been wondering what to call it ... somehow anything with the word 'Study' in the title sounded a little too generic. "Jingle Bella's Study Skills"? It didn't grab me."Things I Need To Be Told" in homage to the etiquettegrrls? Nah. (Besides which, I'm no longer really a fan of theirs ...). So I did what any sensible 21st-century woman would do: I asked the internet.
Specifically, I asked thesaurus.com ... and I came up with this wonderful word. Excogitate.
It's satisfying to say, don't you think? And "thinking something out with care in order to achieve complete understanding of it" is very much a description of what I've been trying to do at University over the last 2.5 years, and that's definitely distinct from what 'study' meant up to the end of A level, where achieving complete understanding might have required a bit of thinking things through, but not the same level of thinking. Oh no.
My plan is to do a series of posts on study-related things. Learning strategies, time management, diet, exercise, sleep, use of colour, self-confidence, sheer bloody-mindedness - all sorts. The reason behind this is simple: just because you know something, doesn't mean you don't need to hear it. There's a lot that I know about studying that I need to hear. I was thinking of collecting it all in once place so that I could have access to it, and then I realised that if I put it on the internet, then other people could have access to it, too, and that might be useful (plus it means that I can use a search function on it. You can't do that on paper).
So this is the plan. Here we go - stay posted for the next installment!
I was thinking this morning ... man, I've probably had some sort of website for the last decade. That's probably not unusual for people around my age. It's still a strange thought.
And that got me thinking that this place needed a facelift ... being a busy final-year university student, I don't really have time to mess about with it, so I logged on to blogger and had a look around, hoping that there'd be something that fitted the bill. And there was - I really like this template. It's got about the same width of text as the previous one, so I don't have to reformat old posts (good, as I don't have time to go through and do that, see above). It's got some nice light green in it, which kind of keeps the faith with the title of the blog, which is nice.
Looking back at older posts on the blog ...wow. I've been blogging here for 6 years. Okay, my content has not necessarily been ... good. A lot of it is self-indulgent, or just cathartic, and a lot of the early stuff especially is just diary entries. Although I won't necessarily claim that these posts are actually interesting to read, I'm glad I've got them. They form snapshots of my life at various points, and snapshots that it's interesting to pick up and reexamine. And I'm guessing for the people who were around me at those times in life they might also be interesting - to look back and remember how we were then, where we were, what we were like, how we saw the world.
In general, my approach has been that I try to write the blog I'd want to read. And certainly when I started out, the blogs I wanted to read were my friends' personal blogs, of much the same style as mine (those of them who had blogs). How we were feeling that day. What we'd been shopping for. Whether school / work / etc was going smoothly or whether life seemed tricky. Things we thought were cool.
I still enjoy that style of blog, and maintain a list of half a dozen or so that I check fairly regularly, say a couple of times a week, plus others that I check sporadically. These are all people I've known (face-to-face) at some time or another, and still stay in some contact with. And it is still interesting to see what they're up to at the moment (and leave comments) and what's making them happy or sad or rant-y etc. But I've also started to read different blogs ... more 'themed' blogs, I suppose. These include Already Pretty (style and self image), The Butcher, The Baker (foodies!), Charming the Birds from the Trees (Orthodox Christianity, homemaking and homeschooling - I don't know why, I found it one day and have been enjoying it ever since), and Momastery (can't describe. Go check it out). And in all of these I'm seeing that a blog can be much more than just a teenage diary.
And I'm starting to think. My blog has been changing over the past years, and I think it's fair to claim that now, any given post is a lot more coherent and useful - a lot less like a page from a teenage diary with everything mixed together. I like that. I'm not so much a fan of the 'stream of consciousness with no editing' sort of writing that I used to like in a blog. I still enjoy reading other people's, but I don't find producing it as interesting or as satisfying. I have more to say these days - more actual content, I mean, not just chatter - at least some of which needs to be said. I'm also learning to shut up about the stuff that doesn't.
So here's to a new direction - one I've been turning towards for a long time, but hadn't formulated properly until today. In some sense I want to keep the snapshot nature - in that I want to represent lots of parts of my life here. There should be some faith, some food, some crafts, some friendships and relationships, some 'general life', and probably a few other things that I've forgotten. But I'm going to try to make each post a bit more thoughtful, a bit more coherent, and try to invite other people in to think/laugh/marvel alongside me a bit more ... and maybe my blog can have more to offer than just a snapshot of me. Maybe it can be useful to others.
So here's the natural complement to my post about how to make prayer beads ... how to use them. I'm not going to attempt to give you a comprehensive guide to using Anglican Prayer Beads - I am in no way qualified to do so, for a start! You can find out about stuff like that here on the King of Peace website, on Wikipedia, or you can Google something like 'Anglican Rosary' 'Anglican prayer beads' 'how to pray the anglican rosary' or similar and you'll find plenty of stuff.
This post is going to be more about my thought processes and my conclusions on how I want to use my rosary ...it's taken me a wee while, but I've settled into a pattern now. Here's a photo of my rosary with explanatory labels:
So to explain the layout (although it should be fairly clear from the photo) you have a loop of beads, of which 4 are larger 'cruciform' beads, which kind of form a cross. Between those on the loop are the 'normal' beads referred to apparently as 'weeks', because they're in groups of 7, I guess. At the bottom of the loop you have an extra large bead, the 'invitatory' bead, and then a cross. The label 'invitatory' may suggest to the astute reader that you start praying around here.
King of Peace suggests that you begin with the cross, move on to the invitatory bead, and pray around the loop anticlockwise three times. As there are 33 beads, this makes 1 + 3*33 = 100, which is a number that humans seem to like.
I'm sure that this is a very good way in which to pray, but it's not what I do. For a start, I think that if you're praying around the loop it seems natural to miss out the invitatory bead (it's not on the loop!) which would put me at 1 + 33 + 2*32 = 98. I guess if I wanted to make it up to 100 I would then come 'off' onto the invitatory bead and then the cross, which would make 100. But I don't think the number 100 is important. I do think that going around anticlockwise feels right, but all I mean by that is that as a mathematician we have conventions that it is positive to go anticlockwise, so that's where that comes from.
So ... enough talking about what I don't do.
Here's what I do do.
1) Pick up rosary in right hand. I'm sure that sitting and calming yourself and finding some quiet beforehand is a good idea. I haven't got there yet; and I'm not sure it's necessary. Probably helpful sometimes. I'll try it someday.
2) Start on the cross.
3) Move around, holding each bead between thumb and forefinger. Go around once. Possibly as I build up practice / time / patience I'll add more times round ... but I'm not doing that at the moment and I might as well be honest, right?
The Prayers: after a couple of days of thinking about things this is what I settled on ...
The Cross:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Invitatory Bead:
The Lord's Prayer
Cruciform Beads:
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Grant us peace.
Weeks: (on each bead)
1) day by day ... three things I pray
(I do end up singing DC talk in my head at this point. I don't think God minds.)
2) to see Thee more clearly
3) to love Thee more dearly
4) to follow Thee more nearly
5) to see Thee more clearly
6) to love Thee more dearly
7) to follow Thee more nearly
Invitatory Bead:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Cross:
Amen.
I did experiment with using the Jesus Prayer, i.e.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
this is the prayer used with an orthodox prayer rope. However, given my choice for the Cruciform beads (which somehow just felt right - very quickly) - I found that this made me feel like I was asking God to do everything and being very passive. Whereas using this amended version of St Richard of Chichester's prayer (see this post for previous comments on that prayer) makes me feel more like I am a part of God's world and God's work, and focuses my mind both on God and on my own responsibilities.
I was listening to Desert Island Discs this morning - Gok Wan was on :) and I am a big fan, so that was really interesting. And then I thought that this would be an interesting exercise to go through myself ... not that I think that anybody particularly cares what the 8 songs I would save would be, but hey, I might introduce one of you to some new music you like :)
So ... 8 pieces that I would take with me, and that in some way review my life so far.
Wow - someone I had pretty much forgotten until I typed that last sentence - Carman. "Christian contemporary" singer (I say contemporary, he's been making music over the last 30 years or so). I very clearly remember as a family having a cassette of his Mission 3:16 album.
That was the first time I listened to music that I thought was cool - my parents didn't buy secular pop music at all, and so up til then the music in our house was probably some random stuff that my parents liked ... say Celine Dion? ... that I didn't really like, and then also sort of Christian praise kids' songs which are always more naff than they think they are. You know, songs that say 5-10 year olds on them will actually only impress 5-7 year olds and 8-10 year olds will cringe, that sort of thing. And even though I was cool with the idea that you should deliberately listen to stuff that builds you up and not stuff that promotes values you disagree with ... the fact that that appeared to mean listening to terribly happy-clappy songs that probably had actions that went with them was rather a pain.
Choosing a song off that album ... Mission 3:16, I think. Here's an awesomely hilarious video of it, James-Bond styleeee:
(the actual song starts about 4 minutes in for anyone who wants to skip the secret-agent-briefing waffle at the beginning)
So that's me at age .... oooh ... twelve, maybe?
After that point I started to discover Christian pop / rock music, and that's what I listened to pretty exclusively till ... ooh ... now? Heh. Although my taste has expanded a lot and I can now listen to classical music without coming out in a rash ... so one of the bands I listened to quite a lot was DC Talk. And really, Jesus Freak has to be mentioned here. I mean, that's sort of canonically obvious. There's an official video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbB0QrBIs9k (embedding's been disabled) - the sound's quite low though, I recommend turning it up. Way up.
(Other favourite DC Talk songs include Coloured People, Consume Me, and In The Light. Check them out.)
What else did I listen to at that time ... FFH. Avalon (a bit poppy). Rachael Lampa (definitely too poppy for me now. Also lyrics too old for her - a teenager claiming "All along the road less travelled / I have walked and I have run" is ludicrous - this was the "Live for you" album). The Ws, a bit (fab hilarious stuff!). Plumb - self titled and candycoatedwaterdrops. Sixpence none the Richer. None of these have really stuck with me. One that has that I *think* I started listening to at around the same time ... the Newsboys.
The Newsboys have some great examples of tongue-twister-type music. You know the kind I mean - lyrics running at nineteen to the dozen which - once you know them - are incredibly satisfying to sing along to ... here's one of my favourites:
("Shine" by the Newsboys is also a song I think of as pretty iconic. That's another one I would recommend.)
I have a pretty cool memory of being at Parachute (that's a big kiwi Christian music festival) in 2002 and hearing a bit of Skillet playing live ... their latest album at that point was Alien Youth. I very very distinctly remember that it was the line "Get all the freaks and let's go" that hooked me. Although the song Alien Youth doesn't particularly resonate with me at the moment, Kill me / Heal me still does:
Something happy ... I've got to include something really happy in here, something that just makes me smile. Because I do have a secret liking for some so-wholesome-most-people-find-it-sickening type music. The sort of stuff Lizzie McGuire would have on. Yeah. Unfortunately I can't find anything that really fits into this category ... maybe that shows that I enjoy such music at the time but it doesn't stay with me? Or more likely that I can't quite bring myself to embed something from the HSM3 soundtrack ... so onward we go.
Moving along ... one somewhat painful / frustrating time: the months and couple of years after I discovered that I wouldn't be able to leave college and go straight on to Uni, but that I'd have to sort out a gap year and be out of sync with all my friends and it just all seemed a bit miserable and Unfair. And a song I remember very much from that time is 'Cycle Down' by Skillet - it's by no means my favourite Skillet song, but it's very good for pushing through frustration and sadness and feeling rather sorry for yourself:
Now here's something from New Zealand - and something a bit more romantic. I bought Brooke Fraser's album "Albertine" while in NZ at the beginning of 2007, when we were back there for my Grandma's funeral. And I really like this song - I think if I recall correctly I wasn't that impressed with it to start with, and Hazel liked it more than I did ... but now it's grown on me. Anyway, here's The Thief.
I'm going to stop any attempt at chronology here and just go through what I've got left ... one song I think I'd have to take with me is Audio Adrenaline's Rest Easy. This is a song that I turn to when it feels like I've been trying and trying and it's just not getting anywere and I'm frustrated and miserable and nothing's working. And it comes and says "shhhhhh ... it doesn't have to go well. It's okay."
And for my last song ... hmmmm. There are two glaring omissions in here: TobyMac isn't represented, and neither are The Lads. I think I'm going to go with The Lads though - and I'm going to pass on the obvious / canonical choices of song like The Cactus Song and Beetroot Stain, or even the totally iconic My Forever Smoochy Girl, and go for the much more recent Coffee With Jesus. I was listening to this just yesterday, and I think it's a fab song. Unnnnfortunately I can't find it online anywhere :( so here's Creator instead for the moment (the new version)
but I really would pick Coffee with Jesus.
Now ... I get given the Bible (can I keep my 5 translations? Or do I have to pick one?) and the complete Shakespeare, and get to choose another book ... the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Definitely. No question.
And one luxury ... Babo.
And if I had to discard all of these songs except one? Hmmmmmm ...
I think I would have to keep Jesus Freak.
(Thoughts? Comments? I'd love to read what other people would take with them.)
I've been vaguely thinking about rhythms of prayer for a while. As a previous post shows, I've also been considering tying an Orthodox Prayer rope. In the end, though, the knot defeated me, and the sheer time-consumingness of it all also put me off ... maybe someday. But not now.
So I started looking into different Rosary-type traditions. I am of course aware of the Catholic Rosary, but am not totally comfortable with praying the Hail Mary, and it would feel wrong to use a Catholic Rosary to pray a non-standard set of prayers (given that they have a standard set of prayers). And then I came across the Anglican Rosary, which doesn't have a standard set of prayers (and isn't necessarily Anglican - that is to say, it can be used by any Christian). It's kind of a blending of the Orthodox Prayer Rope and the Catholic Rosary. You can find out more about it here (and they have a good diagram of it there too); I'm going to do another post in which I talk about why it seems to be working for me and what prayers I'm settling on - the rest of this post is going to just be about the making of the item :)
You will need:
-28 beads for the 'weeks' (normal beads - they go in 4 groups of 7, hence weeks)
-4 larger beads which are the 'cruciform beads' (that is, when you put your rosary in a loop, they kind of make a cross
-1 larger 'invitatory' bead (it is the first bead attached to the cross which sort of 'invites' you to pray (I used the same kind as for the cruciform beads)
-a cross
-some wire
-crimps (you put these either side of your beads and then squash them to hold the bead in place)
-pliers (for crimp-squashing)
-scissors or wire-cutters
Here's what I used. The silver cross has personal significance - it's a necklace that Chris gave me oooh ... probably 5 or so years ago now. Before we were going out. I haven't worn it in quite a long time now (I have other necklaces he's given me, and I have a crucifix that I'll wear if I feel like it for religious reasons) so it's really nice to bring it into this - so it's becoming part of something I'll see / use most days.
Here you can see the layout. I put everything out to scale on paper so that I could visualise it properly - and make sure I cut off plenty of wire. Wouldn't want to get to the end and then find I was a couple of inches short! I used blu tack to keep the beads in place for this. If you had one of those necklace-making boards that has channels that you lay the beads in and has measurements in it and everything that would probably be ideal.
Begin stringing the beads, playing around a bit with precisely what spacing you want, and also with how you want the larger beads to interact with the smaller ones. I was thinking of having the larger ones evenly spaced like all the others, but when I was putting them together I decided that clumping them together like this worked better. I knew I wanted to do something careful with the two large beads and the cross at the end to hide the ends of the wire, so I started stringing with the first small bead rather than one of the large ones.
When I got to the end this is what I did ... brought the two strands down through a crimp, took them individually through the cross and then out the other side, then back up through the crimp. In this picture everything up to the two small purple beads is fixed down, but the other beads / crimps / cross are all free to move. Actually I ended up adding a couple more crimps on the loops of wire going through the cross, to make the wire there lie flatter (there are 4 strands, so I bunched them in pairs). By assorted cutting / sliding, those ends were slipped up inside the larger beads.
Here's the final item :) I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It is very slightly not-evenly-spaced but I quite like that - adds to the homespun charm, or something.
And although I wouldn't wear it (and indeed it's very much not made to be worn - it's too small, and wouldn't be safe as if it snagged on something it would strangle you rather than break) ...
Soap & Glory is a brand I've been aware of and kind of liked for rather a long time. Their products seem good (from the reviews I've happened across), and their tongue-in-cheek retro styling is quite good fun ... although the saucy puns (sexy mother pucker?) don't particularly resonate with me, they're kind of cute, and kind of neat. And at least they're interesting.
So when I was looking for a new cleanser and a new tinted moisturise / sheer foundation over Christmas and I found these on 3 for 2 in Boots, I thought I'd try them out. Here's what I bought:
Glow Job:
I almost didn't buy this - but am now very glad I did! It markets itself as a light bronzer (which is what put me off, I'm not interested in self-tanning type products), and you're supposed to use a pea-sized amount. I use 2-3 times that much, which is how much it takes for it to work as a tinted moisturiser for my skin. You squeeze out a blob, which is white and has tiny spheres of bronzer in it, and then squash them which makes them explode and mix to create the bronzey tinted moisturiser. It is pretty lightweight, but definitely makes a difference, and blends all the various colours in my face / neck together. And it smells nice :). Will definitely buy again - finally makeup that works with my skintone and is foolproof!
The Greatest Scrub of All:
I'm not really impressed with this, to be honest. It has a fruity-chemical scent which isn't too bad (but I don't particularly like), and has very small scrubbing grains which I guess is a good thing. It appears to work vaguely well as a face scrub - I mean, it does make my face cleaner, and I don't end up with a rash or anything, so I guess it's okay. It does feel like a safe and efficacious product - as in, I think it would be fairly difficult to mutilate yourself using it. Maybe it's a bit gentle for me? I wouldn't buy this again - it's £8 - but I considered it to be the one I got free, so I'm happy enough with it on those grounds.
The Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser:
Now this, I love. Love love love. It claims to clean, smooth, and melt away makeup, and it definitely delivers. It's an oil based cleanser - you massage it on and rub it in for a minute, then leave it on for at least a minute (so I brush my teeth in this time), and then press it off with a warm wet cloth. It all melts away, and leaves my skin feeling smooth and clean and pretty moisturised (although I do generally use another moisturiser as well). Also smells good. This I will definitely repurchase. It's worth £9. I haven't worked out quite how long it'll last for, but I've been using it twice a day since mid-December, and I think I've got 1/4 - 1/3 left, so that doesn't work out as much per month, though it's more expensive than any cleanser I'd previously bought.
All in all - I'm very pleased I've tried these products out, and also pleased that I got them on 3 for 2 as otherwise I don't think I would've been prepared to pay the prices.
