The Thing That Sucks About Being Single

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I like to defend singleness.  I like to become very defensive, really, and point out all the people, groups, and institutions that are not doing a good enough job at validating me.  I stand by my observations and my exhortations.  But there’s an elephant in the room that I always pointedly ignore during those kinds of blog posts.

Because the thing I skirt around is painful.  It is far easier to focus on what I like about singleness (the freedom!).  And it’s easier to focus on fear, and how being single means I get to avoid the potential heartbreak of loving someone so deeply that I accept the inevitability of being hurt by them.  It’s easier to pretend that that is the whole picture, thank you, please walk away now.  Continue reading →

The Beach by Alex Garland

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Whaaaaat?  The Beach is the adult Lord of the Flies, and it is no less engrossing (or weird). I haven’t seen the movie based on the book despite Leonardo DiCaprio’s beautiful face, so I got to experience the crazy with an unspoiled mind.

Garland’s book starts off innocently enough, tapping into the traveler’s desire to escape tourism and live a simple life.  When Richard and his new friends find the titular beach, they join a group that fishes, smokes weed, and swims in a protected lagoon that is almost impossible to reach.  Idyllic, right?  Continue reading →

Blog Rec: The Budget-Minded Traveler

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When I stumbled across The Budget-Minded Traveler, I immediately knew I’d struck gold.  She writes perfectly in-depth posts about traveling accessories (suitcases, backpacks, scarves with passport pockets) and traveling tips (visas, cell phone usage, packing inspirations).  Her blog archive is a wonderful place to start, with a tag cloud to help you find a subject you are especially interested in and a list of her most recent posts.

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My favorite post so far (I’m still happily exploring her site) is her Ninja Packing Tips:  Packing List for Europe With Just a 30L Packback.  She includes a lot of pictures and incredibly specific suggestions about what items to take with you and which to leave at home.  It was very inspirational, and I want to make my packing increasingly compact.

Once you get a chance to look at The Budget-Minded Traveler, share your favorite posts in the comments!  I’d love to check them out.

Final Fantasy: RANKED

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My gaming life has always revolved around the Final Fantasy games.  I was eight years old when Final Fantasy 7 came out, and my older brother let me watch him play through the whole thing.  Occasionally he would play a few minutes without me present, at which point I would become outraged and demand a full accounting of what had happened.  I was obsessed, and I still am.  I’ve played all the games released since FF7 (except the online player ones–FF11 and FF14), so here is my extremely opinionated ranking of the Final Fantasy games!  Warning:  SPOILERS AHEAD.

1. Final Fantasy 7 final-fantasy-vii-cast
I imprinted on this game like a baby duckling, so there is no way it could stand anywhere but as #1.  I think, however, that even with objective standards, FF7 would top most people’s lists.  The plot is absolutely phenomenal–I gasped when Aeris died, and I freaked out when Cloud flashbacked to Sephiroth’s destruction of Nibelheim.  This game was overloaded with fascinating backstories, believable motivations, and genuinely emotional moments (Dyne and Barrett’s confrontation, OH MY GOSH).  I’ve played this one over and over again, and it still manages to catch me off guard with how intensely I love it.  Continue reading →

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

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I once received a comment on a blog post that said, “I know you look at this differently, but I do not believe there has been an ages long conspiracy of men to keep women down.”  At the time I was too flabbergasted to respond with any kind of eloquence.  Now that I’ve read Men Explain Things to Me, I won’t have to speak for myself; I will simply hand a copy of Solnit’s book and let it explain things for me, if you will.  *wink*

Seven essays on the female experience, Solnit’s anthology is a must read for anyone interested in the subtle ways our patriarchal society oppresses women.  Sometimes this is manifested in ignorantly arrogant men speaking over women, as in her first essay, “Men Explain Things to Me.”  All too often, however, this oppression takes the form of violence, because

There’s so much of it.  We could talk about the assault and rape of a seventy-three-year-old in Manhattan’s Central Park in September 2012, or the recent rape of a four-year-old and an eighty-three-year-old in Louisiana, or the New York City policeman who was arrested in October of 2012 for what appeared to be serious plans to kidnap, rape, cook, and eat a woman, any woman, because the hate wasn’t personal.

Continue reading →

The End of an Internship

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In December 2013, I was freaking out.  At DTS, we have to spend two semesters working at a counseling facility, and so far, I’d been ignored or rejected by all the places where I’d applied.  Then one day, I received a school-wide email suggesting people apply to The Vale, so I put in my application as a last-ditch effort to secure a position in the spring semester.  When I arrived at the private practice, I immediately loved the calm atmosphere and the counseling philosophy of the man who interviewed me.

Fourteen months later, I am finishing my internship.  I wound up staying there three semesters instead of two and spending an extra two months bringing my clients to a healthy close.  I stayed because I absolutely loved it.  Lois is a phenomenal secretary.  Tyler was the best supervisor I could have asked for.  Nancy was an encouraging fellow intern.  My clients were varied, frustrating, enlightening, and educational.  Looking back at my time at The Vale, I am so incredibly glad for that email in the midst of my confused sadness. Continue reading →

#Athens2015 Playlist

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It is a known fact that the most important part of preparing for a trip is the construction of a trip-specific playlist.  Here are five of the songs on my #Athens2015 Playlist.

1)  Making Money by Ben Rector

  Continue reading →

The Prayer of St. Francis

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I’m a bit obsessed with St. Francis of Assisi, and it all started with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  That’s normal, right?

In the season six finale (which is SO GREAT and I will definitely write about at some point), Sarah McLachlan sings, “The Prayer of St. Francis.”  I thought it was beautiful, and I eventually realized it originated, not with a show about vampire slayers, but with a 13th century monk.  Continue reading →

God With Us by Glenn R. Kreider

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Dr. Kreider is my favorite professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.  I try to take his classes as often as possible, even when they are twice a week at 7:45 a.m.  As a night owl, this is the strongest recommendation I can possibly make.  When he published God With Us in late 2014, I jumped at the chance to have his wisdom in portable book form.

What makes Kreider’s theology so appealing is the way he condenses controversies and debates to their simplest common denominator.  His book continues this practice by covering the entirety of the Bible through the lens of God’s humble decisions to give up his position of authority in order to come to us and relate to us on our level.  Although this humility is best seen in the person of Jesus, Kreider convincingly argues that the triune God has acted in this way from the beginning of creation to its re-creation.  Continue reading →

Singleness According to Tim Keller

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One of the worst things about being single are the comments that come your way from well-meaning friends, relatives, and acquaintances.  My favorite (by which I mean my least favorite) is the question, “Why are you single?”  Sometimes I am tempted to pull a Bridget Jones and pretend to have a skin malady of hidden green scales.  One time I sarcastically responded, “I don’t know.  Why don’t you tell me why you think I’m single?” I was met with uncomfortable silence.  There is simply no good answer.  If there were a specific obstacle keeping me single, I would do my best to remove it.  And anyway, that question just highlights the fact that I am alone, with an unpleasant undertone of “and that’s not okay.”

Knowing my abhorrence of this trend, imagine my delight when in chapter seven of The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller lists four common Christian explanations of singleness….and a sassy retort.  Continue reading →