Life; experienced

It doesn’t matter if you get up at 5:45.

(Woah, did I just say that)

(yes)

I am one to totally enjoy being able to sleep in until exactly 9 am every morning (which recently never happens) but time, it seems is irrelevant. I mean, besides the positioning of the sun in relativity to the location you are on earth, whether it is light or dark makes a little bit of a difference. But to the human consciousness, it makes no difference what time it is, but at what point on the timeline of your life it is.

Is it only the time of the day that changes though? Or are there things that change in our lives that cannot be turned back, and why do these things occur? Of course, time makes a huge difference in the physical chemicals of our bodies, but why does it make a difference in the state of our mind, and how do we put ourselves into these situations? If, in fact, a situation is something you can even get y ourself into without this weird relationship between time and space.

I feel that a situation is totally dependent on both, now that I think about it. You cannot possible have a situation without a previous change of space (not just location, but the places all things are in the universe) and/or time period of you life, no matter how small the increments you may have to divide it into.

So I find myself in this “situation.”  In a foreign country at a Bible, missions, and art school, with a whole bunch of passionate people on fire to reduce world suck. Sitting on a bench in the entryway of a 20th century German castle too early in the morning for anyones good (but then again, why does it matter? My body is arguing with itself about this point at the moment) typing away on a hunk of metal and wires who’s conception began way after my own.

A situation that I am not sure how to handle yet.

I am fasting from food until my birthday (five days) starting this morning, and I am hoping for some revelation, or just some distraction from the things that have been taking over my mind recently. So while I throw myself another factor in the situation I might try to figure out what I need to be doing with my time while I am in this space, and what the do with my space while I have this time.

Crazy how these things are interchangeable.

~Miss Mykell

Here I Am

Oh how the city calls out to my heart!

I spent a day in Dresden (pop. 500,000, not too big, but enough for me) last weekend, and it was fantastic! I had never been in a European city that was not as tourist focused before! It made me realize how much of the world I am missing in my brief existence. Me, Christer, and Christi walked all over the city in awe of the buildings and people we saw.

Dresden was one of those cities that was devastated by WW2, and was just beginning to be back to its former self this decade after all the old churches, theatre houses and even the palace was bombed out. We went through a photo timeline thing inside a beautiful church there (it was all in German, so we had no idea what to call it) and they had photos lined up showing the town from arial view in different years throughout the 20th century.

It was fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time. Some things transcend human culture, and time, and space. Those are the things, I feel, that matter most in the world.  The things that all humans can understand, no matter of their language, background, or beliefs. Heartbreak, suffering, and love are some of those things.

Everyone knows what pain is, everyone can be brought together, or forced apart by it, but everyone knows it. We are talking a lot about injustices in the world this week in YWAM during lectures,  and I am just wondering how we are going to breach all of the barriers that the world has made for us. How are we going to be effective in places we know nothing about?

We just have to play to the things that everyone can understand and comprehend. Me, Christi, and Christer couldn’t read a word of the German exhibit in the church about WW2, but we got the message. We got it very clearly.

Art is beautiful and meaningful to all cultures. That is why I am here.

~Miss Mykell

Welcome to Herrnhut

So I made it here! Exactly one week ago, I did not have the faintest clue that I would be three days into my DTS in Germany at this point, I thought I would be at work, trying to earn some money to get me to this point. It is a little stressful not knowing how I am going to pay for things at the moment, but the important thing I have learned is God provides. Especially in the last week I have learned this. So I am sure now that I am in this other country with no resources to make any money I will end up making it somehow. I took my step of faith, now I wait.

I love it here by the way! The leaves had just started to turn the day I got here for fall! My favorite. I walk through a forest and a field to get to the base everyday from my apartment that I share with a bunch of other girls in the small town of Herrnhut Germany. I have no qualms with walking through this town in the middle of the night here. It is quaint, and there is a bakery that smells so fantastic (that I have yet to take advantage of, but I dream of the morning I actually do) on my way to class in the morning. The penny market is just down the street, it sells cheap swiss chocolate, so people back home, you might get to partake of some of that soon.

For sure this is where I am supposed to be, God has made that so clear in my life this week. I arrived in Dresden (the closest major city, fourty-five min train ride) and of course since it is Germany, everyone speaks German, but I definitely had problems reading the German signs for the train, on the train, and on the telephone I tried to use. In any case trying to get to the base alone was a disaster alone. But when I had finally gotten to the right train stop and I was sitting on the bench freaking out because I had not way of getting a hold of the base since I could not get my supposedly “global” phone to work anywhere  or for anything in Germany, and could not read the public telephones to figure out how they differed from English or American phones. But I was freaking out, I thought I was going to have to go find a hotel or hostel in Lobäu and spend the night there and hopefully use the telephones or something. Just at my lowest moment, when I was thinking it was a huge mistake to come here, and I should never had said yes in such a rushed situation a girl walked up to me and said to me in plain English “Are you Mykell?”

YES!

Great times.

I got to the base fine after that since the girl who found me drove me there. She had been looking for me all day, what good luck she found the bench I was on by the train stop.

Anyway, I guess everyone knew me even before I had gotten to YWAM because I walk in and someone was like “Hey Mykell is here!” and everyone came up to me and hugged me (talk about a lesson in my weaknesses) and told me that they had ALL been praying for me and were so, so happy that I was here.

I didn’t understand until all the stories about me started to pour in the next day. Apparently, from what people have told me at the base, some of these actual sources, some first hand accounts someone had been given my  name by God to pray for me, and they brought it up at prayer meeting. Then another person stood up and said they had a vision from God about me standing in front of a brick wall(money), not able to get through and the all of the sudden the brick wall is blasted apart, and I come dancing over the mess and rubble. Andrew Pickard (Gandalf from camp) confirmed this to be a good likeness of me, so they all prayed for me. Then, the next day the money came in for me to be able to go, I got the call from them last friday morning, and here I am,  in the land of beautiful sunsets, adorable architecture, savory chocolate, and Firwood slugs.

All I have to say now is that I must be here for something, I don’t know what yet, and I don’t know why yet, but it has to be something great that God is planning for my life, and I cannot wait to see what it is!

~Miss Mykell

Our hearts respond to His revelation.

And so I begin

That might have been a title I have used before.

But I still like it.

Being in airports is one of the most interesting experiences. You are just sitting there waiting for your plane to board sometimes for hours at a time. Everyone around you comes from a radically different background, everyone has their own style, interests, and they are all focusing on different things, but also the same thing: getting to their destination.

You meet people from Germany, leaving on totally different flights and somehow ending up in the same place as you in the end. Totally different mind frame this is.

You also learn lots about the places you are going by overhearing people talking in the next seat.

Take your time coming home, home, home.

~Mykell

The way we flow: Part 1

There is a post here at camp. A post that is on the top of a huge hill and is smack in the middle of camp. Until recently this post remained vacant, but now it is acting as a coat rack. Yes, a child had left their coat on it last week, and it has since then not been recovered.

I know for a fact that I am not the only person that is taking note of this. I have daily conversations about how all the staff thinks it is a small child just standing there awkwardly alone and then when they get close enough they realize that it is actually a pole. They then carry on their way until the incident occurs again in their mind as they walk back up or down the hill.

I think it is a secret contest to see how long we can get away with leaving it there. Haha, just kidding.

There was this thing that happened to Google last May. Google designed an actual Pac-man game on thier home page. It was an amazing blip in time in the internet world, or at least my world.

So entertaining.

But the thing is it cost the United States 120 million dollars in productivity for the day.

Crazy how one internet site if used for just 32 seconds more than usual by each person can make such a huge impact. It makes me want to calculate how much time is spent interrupting the staffs brain flow thinking about the coat pole. And this makes me wonder about how much time we actually do have as humans, and how much cognitive surplus there is out there in the world just waiting to be harnessed and used.

To be continued…

~Miss Myké

Vanish

And now your gone.

Funny how you can be somewhere, and then. . . you’re just not. Time and space can always be separate, but they are bound together by more than just their nature.

It’s almost as if they rely on each other, but then they are transcendent of each other as well.

Define Me

How, or would the more appropriate word be why, does the world define things? Let’s take the very basic definition of the word define and break it down then expand upon that, shall we?

Define:

–verb (used with object)

1. to state or set forth the meaning of (a word, phrase, etc)

2. to explain or identify the nature or essential qualities of; describe

3. to fix or lay down definitely; specify distinctly

4. to determine or fix the boundaries or extent of.

5. to make clear the outline or form of

–verb (used without object)

6. to set forth the meaning of a word, phrase, etc.

Okay so inferring from the fact that all the definitions (taken from dictionary.com) of this word are a verb, I need to reconstruct my original question because a verb implies that something is alive and has the capacity to alter things, and make decisions. Then it will be:

Why do humans define things?

Obviously it is more than just words we define, its people, objects, categories, colors, shapes, sizes, attitudes. . . ourselves. So why is there this nature in ourselves to have a clear meaning of everything around us, in lingustical and comprehensional terms?

Of course the former is easy to answer, without humans using verbal definitions with concrete meaning behind them there is no basis for language or communication of any kind. One must know that the other is Human or at least know enough about themselves and categorization to be able to tell the difference between another human and a plant.

Even now your brain is defining and organizing what I am typing in this browser to create an image, per sé, of what I am trying to convey to you. So obviously we must define the world around us in such a manner to be able to interact and function within a group of people, and maybe even within ourselves.

It is the second and third definitions make things a little bit more complicated, but the world around us a little bit more concrete. To understand the nature or essential qualities of something employs our knowledge of how to operate the first definition plus be able to put all the abstract data together into one thought.

So instead of someone asking you to tell them what a strawberry sitting on the counter is (because they have no knowledge of this blessed fruit somehow) you wouldn’t help them understand by telling them it is a delectable red juicy fruit that looks like a heart with seeds, it doesn’t make any noise while growing or off the vine and it ripens about a certain time of year and doesn’t get bigger than your fist (and if it does please tell me, because I want one!) and so on and so forth. No, I am sure that they can gather most of this information by themselves with their own sensory organs, you would probably just tell them it is a strawberry. But this sort of defining is putting a bunch of information into one generally understood word for that language.

Somehow, some of us, cough, me, cough, sometimes get wrapped up in defining things with words and sentences, which is good, but we must get beyond that someday. So moving on to other definitions and not letting ourselves get wrapped up in words. . .

It’s the abstract and crazy we divulge into now. The not uniform and untrue is what confuses and belittles people, communities, tribes, nations, the world the most. Defining these things, and the things that matter (people, God, love, etc) gets tricky because we have to have something that tells us what the other is, but it is not always looked at the same from every definer’s point of view.

In fact some people’s point of view on certain topics weighs more heavily in groups of people, or society. These people are called “experts” in their field. Experts, though, still have their own personal filter that they use to look at the world and define it.

If I said define. . . yourself, everyone would have a different answer. Obviously because we are all different, but not only would the things be different, they would be different types of things we are defining ourselves by.

Some would define themselves by their job, their family, what they have done, what they have not done, what color their skin is (?) there are billions of things to define yourself by.

Let’s say we were all defining one person, say, God. And phew, look at all the definitions that we already have out there for that. There are some definitions that say he/she/it (object God) does not, some are adamant that (object God) does. Then there are just as many in each of those categories to describe and back up that conclusion.

What a world of definitions we are.

Well, in fact, I don’t think we can define these things. Ourselves, me, you, God, Love, the world, communities are undefinable.

You cannot take something so big, so incomprehensible and divide it into too many little pieces to try to fit it into all these preconceived ideas we already have in place for all these words we are using to define that object, thing, or idea. Yes, definitions are nice, and get some degree of the point across, but there is never a way that we can convey all of it to each other.

There is a disconnect at this level.

(This was not what I started to write about at all. . . yet here we are. . . haha)

Wouldn’t it be a grand thing not to have this disconnect?

I once heard a saying that you could define yourself by:

“not who you are, but whose you are.”

What an interesting thought. And I discredit it.

Why would one define themselves by what they belonged to?

Unless, just maybe, the thing that you defined yourself by was an absolute.

For you can be owned by many things in life. Some seemingly good, some seemingly bad. Drugs, Ideas, knowledge, Sex, Another person, Your computer, Money… anything really.  But one would have to use something so complete, so infallible to define themself with to make this statement true because being owned by anything other than something that infinite would be a disservice to yourself.

We live in a world that screams at you to define me, define you, define everything, but sometimes you just can’t. Depending on how you carefully craft it.

-Miss Mykell

The Huge Picture

I was thinking about how nothing we do really makes sense. I mean, some things might seem to further the world, or keep us sane, but, in the grand scheme of things, nothing we do really makes that much of a difference.

Of course you could, at this point, argue with me, and say “haven’t you ever heard of the butterfly effect!?” Of course I have, but this is not the point I am making, I was merely stating that I was thinking this the other day. Now I wish to comment on my conclusion.

In a recent epiphany I have equated the things we do to an assembly line industry, or company. You have workers who all have odd small jobs that might not make sense to them. Most of these workers don’t know many of the other jobs, or just exactly why they have to do their jobs, but they do it,if for nothing else but compensation.

But there is always this guy at the top, the guy who runs the company. He sits up in his office, or oversees from his catwalk above. This guy is the guy who knows everything. He knows each and every one of the jobs that are being done, and exactly why they are being done when the final product comes out correctly. To him everything that is confusing to all the workers who seem to sometimes have meaningless jobs is crystal clear. He knows it all, and has people do certain things so it will come out correctly.

I am now going to equate this to the world. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make sense, and I don’t exactly know why we do anything that we do, really. But there must be someone out there somewhere that sees everything with clarity and puts people places so things will turn out right.

For now, I am trusting in that fact.

~Miss Mykell

The shot

Photography: The art of capturing a fraction of a second of light and compounding it into a two dimensional image that stimulates an audience visually.

On my journey of discovery of self, others, and life through photography I have learned a lot, about pretty much everything. The thing about photography is it is easy, in theory, but I have also discovered that photography is ultimately difficult in application.

Not because of the technical aspects of the camera, which are, at times, difficult in process, but because of implications behind the evisceration of emotion behind an image that a photographer takes. When I take a photograph I can only hope that I convey to another person what I am thinking about and feeling as I capture and process the image. But most times I fall short, or do not even know the audience my image is reaching or impacting.

Another thing about photography is that people are all very different. And something that captures my heart and attention might be starkly contrasting to something that another person finds unique and interesting.

Take this image: (by Jens Kolk)

I find this to be gorgeous, absolutely fabulous. You, however, may not; or you may, depending on your taste.

I can only imagine, though, how the photographer of this was feeling or thinking when he took this. He may have thought it was his greatest work ever done, and I commend him and very much respect him even though I am certain I do not realize to the fullest extent everything that was meant by this image.

As the photographer myself, I cannot let myself dwell on what other people think of my photography for this very reason, and must only try to make what I think to be beautiful and imspiring.

And thus is the life of a photographer.

Life Before Google: A short story

I walked into the room and sat down on the couch next to you and said,  ”I just thought of something that I would like to know more about.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame.” You replied.

THE END

–Chuck and Beans Comic–

The difference between then and now

A girl hops in a car already stuffed with friends from her new major. She laughs at the silly inside jokes that have already been made and sings along, not afraid to show this side of herself around these strange, but interesting people. They drive off into some unknown location, well, at least somewhere that is ,small, not even caring that only one of them needs to be there. She, and the rest of her comrades are just along for the ride and the company.

The same girl then exits the car twenty songs, one Mountain Dew,  seventeen deep thought moments, and two hours later to head into the SUB of the college she attends only to be greeted by some long-lost (thankfully) high school buddies.

The greetings are cordial, but strained and forced as she hovers over the table they reside for a couple minutes, then casually, but reluctantly sits down. They converse, quite cautiously and they all try to keep this constant level of witty banter about their new life after high school. Submitting what most would call foul words in intermittently to appear much more mature than when they all last laid eyes on each other.

Such is how the conversation continues until her head pounds from concentrating too much on what they are actually saying instead of what they are trying to come off as saying.

That is the difference between then and now.

And such is life.

~Miss Myké

And, for those of you who know what this is about…. Dammit, I have become too attached.

Blink

Your life can change in only a moment.

This a statement I have come to know all to well in my life, but I always seem to be ill prepared for such occasions, no matter how consistent or occurring it happens to be.

I now must ask how can I be more prepared, more ready for these things to happen, so that they do not seem like such a blow?

Maybe I cannot.

For now, I shall wait for my next one.

~Miss Myké

Pinpointing an avid reader’s personality

I have taken a large amount of various famous authors and compiled them into a list of the Author and the person you are likely to find being their fan. Enjoy

Dan Brown- People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids

Nicholas Sparks- Hopeless romantics

Jane Austen- Hopeless Victorian romantics

Stephen King- Cynics that want an escape from the world

John Green- Nerdfighters

JK Rowling- Smart Geeks

Dr. Suess- Artists that wish they were creative as him

Stephanie Meyer- People who type like this:     OMG Mah fAvVv <3 <3

Chuck Palahnuik- Teenage boys who are still abstinent

Ayn Rand- Workaholics seeking validation

Ralph Waldo Emmerson- People who can start a fire

Charles Dickens- Ninth graders who think they will be authors but someday end up in marketing

William Shakespeare- People who know how to insult other people

Mark Twain- Liars

Anne Rice- People who don’t use conditioner for their hair

Ted Dekker- Christian Stephen King enthusiasts

Edgar Allen Poe- Victorian Stephen King enthusiasts

Micheal Crichton- Doctors who went to third tier medical school

John Grisham- People who flunked out of law school

Emily Giffin- Women who give their boyfriends marriage ultimatums

William Fulkner- People who are good at crosswords

Sylvia Plath- Girls who keep journals

Nick Hornby- Guys who wear skinny jeans and the girls who love them

Brett Easton Ellis- Foo-fighters fans

Elizabeth Gilbert- Women who like the movie  “The Divine Secrets of Ya Ya Sisterhood” but didn’t read the book

Alice Shebold- People who liked Gilmore Girls, even the first season

Brothers Grimm- Victorian Lewis Carroll enthusiasts

Lewis Carroll- People who move to Amsterdam after high school for the drug scene

Shel Silverstein- Girls who can’t spell “leheim”

Douglas Adams- People who bought the first generation Amazon Kindle

Tom Clancy- People who skipped school by hiding out in the gym

Virginia Woolf- Female high school French teachers

Max Barry- People who don’t mind the color orange

C.S. Lewis- Youth pastors that liked J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien- People who are addicted to epic metaphors and RP games

Christopher Moore- People who love to hear hours of backstory

Lemony Snicket- Cynics that like a happy ending

Craig Clevenger- People who wish they had a mental illness

Roald Dahl- Boys that never grew up

Beverly Cleary- Girls that never grew up

Madeline L’engle- People who have never read Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Ellen Hopkins- People who like to pretend they can speed read

Brian Jaques- People who always knew there was a secret war going on between rodents

Laurie Halse Anderson- Girls who have secrets to tell

Elizabeth Wurtzel- Girls who suffer from depression or other mood disorder

Dean Koontz- People who think Stormy should be able to talk to Odd

Rob Bell- Christian modernist media consumers

Frank Peretti- Philosophers who wish they could create better metaphors

Ernest Hemmingway- People who can’t get out of Idaho so they contemplate suicide

John Stienbeck- Lit majors who nave nothing better to do than read his novels

John Eldridge- Short christian guys who watch too many movies and really, really, want to be 6′ tall

Tim LaHaye/Jerry B Jenkins- Christian females who don’t want to read the Bible

Clive Cussler- Anyone who thinks Tom Clancy novels are too hard to understand

Mike Etherington- Americans who dream of being perfect (i.e. English)

Peter Mark Roget- Those who cannot stand to lose at scrabble

Max Lucado- People who don’t think God explained things clearly enough

Reinstatement

I have come to embrace a very different, and very awesome game of cards.

The name of the game is Mao, and Mao is the name of the game.

Not much else I can really tell you…

Except I will comment on how I love to watch the way that the Mao master keeps order of their deck whilst mid-play.

Some Mao masters love to keep their decks in perfect order, because of course it makes the game-play that much swifter, and less confusing (and in Mao, confusing is an issue sometimes).

Some don’t care how the discard deck looks, or the draw pile… they let them run all over the place and let the decks themselves choose where they are to flow upon the playing surface.

Some of the High Chancellors just really like to shuffle the decks impeccably, so it can not possible produce a run of any suit at any time during play.

If  you have never been a Mao Master yourself, let me just put this piece of information in front of  you. Its a very very hard job. Keep track of your own play, everyone else’s, and the inanimate (sometimes) pile of cards in the middle of the table. Whew.

And now my friends we venture on in our journey of this game, for Mao is like life, we learn as we go on.

~Elle Violet

A Facebook New Year… a bit early

So Facebook has this cool new app that pulls from your collection of lovely photos on your profile (I am supposing a certain number from each time of year) and sticks them all in a big rectangle, like so:

What a great representation of my year!

So, for this blog, I have decided to review each picture, and/or tell a story about it.

•The first, being a picture of mine, Amy’s and Emma’s converse in a little café above a Micheals’ of sorts. It was our first time out together after I got to England, and was a blast, especially the spinny reclining chair.

•The second is a cover page from my repetior of  children’s stories (okay, the only children’s story I have written and illustrated).

•Thirdly we have my first photoshop painting. I am extremely proud of this one, and am glad that I took that class after all.

•The last on the first line was when I was hanging out at the Jenks’ house after church with Chelsea (although mysteriously absent from the picture, probably in the kitchen stealing a piece of the marvelous dessert that was there). This was at the end of my first summer of my adult life.

•Next we have my first random photo shoot on the campus of CSI. Where I disappointingly  ended up this year. Sitting right in front of me (out of frame) are Alix and Andrew, just hanging out under a tree in the waning summer sun.

•After that is a picture Kim Turner took, just days before I left for England, on top of the best hay maze I have ever been in. Thanks for the good time guys.

•Then we have me Sarah and Ethan at the pub, where we proceeded to play billards and battleship and monopoly. It was a good pub.

•Oh and dear Shanica, my first real senior photo shoot. It was so much fun, beautiful sunset, beating the light at the end of the night.

•The first on the third row is a picture taken by Randy Burbank from my place of employment now. I love that photo.

•Hey look, next is Holly! This was definitely the most fun photo shoot ever. It was one week before CIY, and we were housesitting, and we were awesome together. I miss you Holly.

•But then we have the ever famous picture of Nichole. I’m so glad I met you, and I’m so glad we share this love of creativeness together. This picture was one that I just randomly snapped off when she wasn’t expecting it, it wasn’t even supposed to be part of the shoot that day (1940′s).

•Then, I think, is my favorite picture of me that I have done this year. I was really just playing around with the camera outside of TJ Maxx, and somehow managed a shot of my face like that behind some berries. Then one week and five photoshop sessions later, here we have it.

•Now, time for high school graduation. With Holly of course. Yay!

•Next is a picture that Nichole took, while I did my beam routine on a cinderblock building… in my mother’s old wedding dress…

•Haha, this next one is me and Brooke. Nuff said

•Last, but not least is a picture that someone I don’t really know took of me and Chelsea the first day we met f2f. That was a good day, and a good play.

Ahhh… that was a nice review of my year… through photographs…

Time suck

Ah, Christmas. Right?

The holiday season is the best time for reuniting with those people you have not seen in forever, and the people you love, and the people you see all the time and still love, and… well… your relatives. You know, the people of whom are your own flesh and blood, who have the most in common with you (arguable, much).

There is good food, great games, and what a lot of people in this commercialized America seem to think is important presents!

Presents are good. I mean they make you actually think about people that you are buying them for for at least as much time as it takes you to buy or make them. So you go to the store, sometimes racking your brain to pick out the perfect present for the person in mind (sometimes you know them well enough this is a cinch though).

You find that one perfect thing, that you think they are going to go “Wow, this person really knows me well enough to buy this Rubiks cube.” or “This person cares about me enough to find me this great CD that I wanted that is virtually impossible to get.” You hope with all your being that they think these sorts of things about your gift to them, and you take it home, delicately remove the price tag (we can’t let them know how much you actually spent on them… this could be a good or bad thing, depending) and place it in a perfect sized box.

Then you take this perfect present, placed inside this perfect sized box, and wrap it perfectly, with the perfect color of bow and cute name tag that tells who it is to, and definitely tells who it is from. You are finished with this gift, so you place it under the perfectly sparkling Christmas tree and await its opening day.

Upon Christmas morning, every child, who has awoken way earlier than their normal schedule, and therefore are much to cranky, much to early looks forward to opening all these glittery presents that are supposedly perfect. And all the adults are curious as to what are in their own presents (oh don’t tell me your not!).

Then the unwrapping ceremony begins. For some families it is an all out brawl as everyone opens all their presents all at once. Others ceremoniously take turns, making sure that each opens a present before they get to open two, making sure to take their time and appreciate each present, announcing who it is to and from and taking at least three pictures of each person holding it up (mine happens to be this kind).

When it is all said and done, that perfect present that you got for each person, and wrapped so perfectly is lying on the floor, wrapping spread out around everyone (no matter which method your family uses, unless they are weird and clean as they go).

We did all this work, for at least one whole month out of our year for this, this interesting ritual. It seems life sometimes works this way.

You spend so much time doing something, pouring your whole heart and soul into it, making sure you are doing it right, perfecting your art, or paper, or work, or sport, or college application, and sometimes all that becomes of it is some silly thing that you never wanted in the first place surrounded by a whole bunch of garbage. You are grateful for the thing you do have, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it feels as if all this preparation should have amounted to more. More of something. More satisfaction, more money, more friends, more scholarships, more weight lost, more, more, more…. something. You feel as if it isn’t really exactly what you wanted, and feel like if you would have just expressed more what you wanted, it might have come  a little bit more true.

Because no matter what present you buy people, unless they asked for it directly, no matter how perfect you seem to think it is for them, the outcome will most likely leave both of you feeling a little hollow inside. Yes they are appreciative, but what are they going to do with yet another Rubik’s Cube, really?

How is it we get it in our minds that this something is really going to make everything perfect, especially since the outcome is yet so different than that of which we have in our minds? How do we fall into this illusion?

I mean really how many times does a kid grow up to be exactly as he or she dreamed?

~Miss Myké

There is a secret war going on in our teenage culture. Many book enthusiasts are starting to realize it, but “normal” people probably have quite some time before it will hit mainstream media for them to see….

It is the war between bloodsuckers and wand wielders, sparklers and puppet pals.

Yes my freinds, you may not even know it, actually, you may be in on it and not even know it, but there is a battle going on between Harry Potter fans and fans of the Twilight series.  I swear it is an all out war! Well at least here in the realm of the internet it is.

Splashed all over MLIA, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and even right in this very household…. this war is for blood… okay, maybe not, maybe reputation. But some say reputation is more than anything in the history of earth.

Then there are the people caught in the middle, captivated by both series, not holding one above the other. They are the ones in real trouble, they are getting ripped apart by both sides. Ouch.

And there is me, not sure if she likes any which better than the other, but not sure if I really like either one… (well except for the fact that Helena is Bella…. but I don’t think that sould count towards anything).

~Miss Myké

Hey look, I found it!

99 Red Balloons, Minus About 89

Today, my fellow internet users, marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of the internet itself. 

Yes, it has been 40 years since the first two letters (the first word supposed to be sent across the gap was “login” the L and O were sent successfully, the GIN didn’t make it before the system crashed) was sent over 400, from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute miles across the first connection that we now call the internet. What a difference it makes in the world. Going from virtually just a dream that imaginative nerds had in the late 1960s to a tool that is now considered a legal right in Finland. 

Today there was also a contest put on by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to use our newfound connections of the internet to find and pinpoint the exact locations of 10 giant weather balloons places around the nation. The winner was to receive $40,000 USD. 

Individuals were encouraged to find teams to compete with, I chose my very own Nerdfighteria, of course. They were donating all their money to charity, so an obvious choice. A neat infrastructure and social plan had already been in place for years of this team, and they had something already built… a tight knit, but geographically spread community. Yes, we were destined to win.

These balloons (I have typed this word into my browser way  too many times today) were a cause of flurry and focus in the internet communities today. The mark of 10 AM (EST) sent internet users from around the country out into the communities to search for the balloons, and thus started a race of skills, determinations, luck, adventure of unknown places, communication, networking, and using all technological resources possible. 

The most threatening enemy team? Students formed from the prestigious university called MIT. Yes they were trained for this sort of thing, but we, we were different, we were just good on our own.

After searching my own community at 8 AM (MST)  tuning in to the live broadcast by John Green, I found a hacker team of me and about 5 other people to link up with. And our mission began. 

We ended up building proxies, to throw off MIT’s lead finder, which was an interactive map on their team page. 

We. were. good.

At the end of the day, Nerdfighteria got all ten locations found and submitted them to DARPA.

We waited and crossed our fingers, but alas we were beaten by only a couple of minutes by MIT. 

I still consider our day to be a huge success! Not only did I get to serve on the top team of hackers in Nerdfighteria, but we as a whole Nerdfighter community did do awesome!

DFTBA

~Miss Myké

An old trick, a new beginning

I love the feel of freshly crushed chalk between my fingers, the rough leather of a beam beneath my feet, and the smooth but uneven breathes that escape my mouth as I prep for a tumbling pass. Yes, I have once again undertaken getting back in shape to do my favorite favorite favorite sport, gymnastics. 

I have missed my leos lying all over my floor dearly, and I have missed the physical exertion, as well as free flying ecstasy of doing a back layout through uncertain midair. 

Oh and the colors that represent the movements! How beautiful they come back to me and flourish inside my head. I even missed pulling a cutting leo off aore flesh and muscles at the end of the day and relaxing into loose pajama pants after an after-workout rinse….

Ahhh it feels so good.

I love the way it feels.

I find it funny that I am trying to pull a Haley Graham once agian, even though I know how truely hard it is now.

Hard but rewarding.

~Miss Myké

An Excerpt… finally!

     We walked down the brightly lit hallways to our first class of the day in mutual silence after that. Not too many people were in the halls this early, which was good because I didn’t feel like pushing through the people this morning. The doorway to the music rooms was decorated nicely with notes and paintings around the frame. It was a good thing some people in this place had a personality, it distinguished them from all the others, the artsy youth.Yes they were by far the most interesting of anyone here at schooling. 

     I sat down at my individual pod and pulled up my files on my screen. The pods had just been upgraded this year, and were all matching in their qualities. They had nice big digi screens that produced 3-D images for art, science, music, and other such things. Their glass screens were of the highest quality and ultra scratch proof, so even the dumbest youth could not put a dent in it. Just behind the surface were our hover stools that stayed pretty much in place, as long as you had your settings configured correctly. 

     It seemed that everything was being configured into hover something or other these days. The magnetic grid that we had was fantastic, so there was no point in using any other traditional method of suspending things. Even art galleries never used walls anymore to hang photographs and paintings. They were just arranged throughout the room according to what the artist had designed for the pieces. Totally free of restriction. It was kind of an art in itself. 

     I opened the Draw3002 application and began work on a new project I had been thinking of all morning. It was of all the people, in a busy crowded street, but this street was in between buildings, not on top of them. It wasn’t like the subways that we had underground either, it was in the open air. All the buildings had portals that you could just walk through to get inside of them. 

     When I started to draw the people in these streets I noticed a shadow over my pod. I looked up over my shoulder to find my voice professor staring at my drawing.

     “Your here very early this morning dear. That is unlike you! I didn’t know that you were good at drawing Luxia. How come you are in Voice instead of Drawing?” 

     “Well Miss Brochés, I have already taken all the art classes this schooling center offers.” I answered her.

     “More than I have taken! And I love art!” Aéon chimed in from across the room, then dropped her head back down to whatever she was doing.

     “Well you could take them again, and expand your portfolio.” Miss Brochés suggested to me.

     “I have taken them all two or three times. Do you not like me in your voice class?”

     “Oh not at all Miss Luxia! You are a delight in my class, especially when you speak up. I was just wondering why you are fooling around in Voice when you are great at art.”

     “I like Voice very well Miss Brochés. I wish to continue my studies in it for now.”

     “Very well then, I will leave you to continue now, sorry I interrupted.”

     “It’s okay, you can watch if you want, I don’t much notice when people do.”

     I continued on with my drawing, until the clocks commanded that all students had to head to class, then I closed the application and waited for my peers to seep into the room.

     Class commenced. I didn’t know it then, but the beginning of a new life had started for me.

NaNoWriMo

Ah…. the first day of the last November of 2009. What a great day. I can smell the caffeine injecting coffee brewing my my kitchen… wait I don’t have a kitchen, nor do I like coffee. Dang, I could almost really smell it there for a nanosecond (no pun intended).

I have decided this year to participate in the annual National Novel Writing Month challenge, which is to write a 50,000 word novel in once month (just 10,000 words above the official qualification of a novel)

I am really, really excited. 

But really tired of writing today… with already over 3000 words I am almost to my day two goal on day one. So what do I do when I am tired of writing? That is correct, I write a blog!

I am such a nerd.

Oh well. 

Just a quick note to tell you guys out there what I am doing, and why most of my blogs might take a weird turn in the next month, or actually be excerpts themselves.

Well back I go, into the world of my story.

~Miss Myké

My Current Word Count= 3122 

The difference between us and… well, us.

It’s halloween time today, and everyone know what that means….

No, not candy time… zombie apocalypse movie time! Yay! My favorite! 

Okay maybe not my favorite, but I did find a fairly decent movie today called 28 Weeks Later. Well put together with some great acting, and set in the country I am not visiting, I found it to be believable if virus’ can mutate as such to take down an entire centuries old monarchic country in less than three weeks. 

Hey it could happen.

Let me get to my point; so we have all these movies about infected humans, zombies, vampires, and people mutating into some sort of grotesque lower form of themselves, and they made me wonder why we do classify them as “lower” than ourselves (the zombies and such). 

I mean, they really just go to primal animal instinct right? Not showering, eating with their fingers, and cannibalism might be the three main hints of that.

But, according to some, that is all we are, animals. Maybe there is more to us than animals though. Foaming at the mouth and attacking any human that breathes (but their already turned into zombies kin, I haven’t figured that one out yet) they jerk around ferociously as they bite chunks of flesh and blood off peoples faces and necks.

There has to be something more to humans than just animals.

I think it’s love, and soul, and that we are built after something. Designed to be something more. Not just do something more, be something more.

Watching this movie also made me ponder why we “lower” zombies to be less than us. The main difference between them and us is that they kill thier own kind. How disturbing, killing your own kind.

Oh wait, we do that too.

But why?

Take into consideration that everyone dies someday, and we still find it upsetting, and we still grieve when someone dies.

Is there a particular reason that we have these things that prompt us to commit violent acts of murder and slaughter such as war and crime? I see no reason but disagreement between two or more people.

And that is not reason enough for me.

It’s like two boys building cities made of blocks, and one disagrees with the other so he starts to demolish his own city by throwing blocks at the other’s city. Therefore ruining the whole world that they had built together. 

How illogical.

So I must ask:

Why is it that we kill our fellow humans? Can anyone give me a good answer? Are we made for more than this? Are we designed for a higher purpose? What are we supposed to be doing with this world? With our short lives?

~Miss Myké

That time in between

Alone time.

Yes, some of your may run and scream now.

Are you back? No? 

Well the rest of us will continue without you and await your return later. 

This idea of being alone, by yourself, in solitary doesn’t sound like a bad one to me anyway. I do now understand why the concept makes some people squirm, if not all of us humans sometimes. I have been more alone in the last week than I have ever been in my life. I shipped off to another country, in a big city, surrounded by tons of people, nevertheless all by myself.

Not that I am complaining, I love this time to refresh my thoughts, but I can’t help but think why is it that we all need this time? 

I think it is to reflect without outside interference. We all need to learn to define ourselves by who we really are, and I am the worst at mixing myself with other people. I am. 

So we are alone, and its refreshing, or nauseating, enlightening, or depressing, whichever you prefer. But in the end we really are alone, given the fact that we are all equally alone without the connection to see that we are not.

Maybe I don’t make sense.

But on my English holiday I have learned so much about myself.

Including that I really, really, really like walking places and wish people would do it more often where I come from.

~Miss Myké

This is called…

…a flight delay.

And it definitely sucks. But at least there are only about five of  use waiting for the same flight.

That point in time

Its at that point in time that you realize

that even though your closet light burnt out

its going to be okay,

and even though you can’t take that extra weight off

it will be just fine.

Even though you keep biting your cheek on the inside

you will heal…. well…. eventually.

Even though you miss a face, a friend, a lover today

there is always that chance to reunite over time (be it in “other” places).

Even though you are crying tears on your pillow tonight;

even though your heart aches and your mind is hollow;

even though its almost as if there is no love left in the world;

those tears can turn to tears of joy in the morning,

your heart and mind can be complete and filled soon,

and the world can be a little bit brighter, if you create or look for it.

It’s at which point in time you realize this

and you have finally realized

just that.

 

~Miss Myké

Picture Time, so say cheese? Please?

Okay, let’s talk about something I have found out I am obsessed with(for very good reason) Pictures.

Oh yes, the 2-D fantasticness.

So yes, I am obsessed, and I figured this out since that is the only thing I pretty much think about 24/7 now. Well except for like sleeping, but that is its own problem in itself.

I really really love photography, and all that it does for humanity. It records events, shows history, advertises, recounts memories, presents, and communicates emotions, thoughts, feelings, ideas, and can even show a little bit of the human soul. There are things you can do with photography to create and communicate loveliness that you cannot do with words.

The only thing is, that most times you can get a better than reality presentation of what you are capturing if you use the right techniques and have an eye for it. But I just wish that you could capture what your eyes really see. There are some amazing things out there that just don’t quite feel or look the same on a digital picture as they do with real life atoms and quarks and cells and stuff.

Wouldn’t that be neat, shouldn’t we make some sort of instrument that could capture such images? Maybe we can make an instrument that captures photographs for blind people, or in 3-D. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Wow the endless opportunities of the imagination (and photoshop for that matter) and the limited oppertunites of reality. 

Or are there limited opportunities? 

DFTBA

~Miss Myké

(P.S. I know all the pictures are of one person (cough me cough) but I like to ask before I put anyone else on the internet, and really no one is up at this hour…. sigh)

Just try not using me. . . you can’t.

Have you ever thought about sentence punctuation?

I mean really thought about it, and our affects on its well being and overall health?

I think that this little thing -> . <- (in between the arrows) is the most overworked inanimate object in the history of writing. I especially make it do its job just way too much.

The period ends up doing its job, and filling in for most of the inadequacies of the other punctuation marks. The only punctuation that I can think of right now that the period does not make an appearance in is the comma (,) and even then the comma had the guts to model itself after the period.

Then there is the ellipsis who triples the workload of this poor period, at least he is suppose to give it some space in between, but that rarely happens.

The Colon (:), it just makes the period do acrobatics upon itself, I am surprised it never falls over from atop that little point. . .

And the semi-colon(;), it cannot decide whether it wants to be a cheap imitation of the period, or the actual period itself, so it chooses to do both, and make the period do acrobatics still.

Of course I might appreciate the exclamation point (!) if i didn’t know better. I have done some research, and in fact, the exclamation point is just a period thrown at the wall and its decent to the ground. Oh the poor beat up thing.

At least with the question mark (?) there was some creativity thrown on top of the period to at least make it think it looks pretty most of the time.

Oh that poor little period, all the trouble it goes through, just to make sure we can have coherent sentences to read. Of course, we writers salute you and all your hard work for us. Without you, we would make no more sensethanasentancewithnocaplitalizationnospacesandnostructuretomakesurethatitisunderstandableandnottoohardtoread

Nor, is too overbearing to the reader to look at. Yes, you little dotty thing, you save most of us from the embarrassment of run-on sentences, and incomplete thoughts.

. . .

. . . .

. . . . .

~Miss Myké

(P.S. The period would like to thank the following punctuation marks, no matter how little they are used, for giving him a break: /<>_+-=&^%$£@*~`’”[]{}\|)

(Even though now he realizes what he just said really sounds like a whole bunch of swearing…)

Compulsive Materialism

Let’s talk about stores. Right now.

Stores are like huge shops, where you can get everything. People gather in their transportation of choice outside of these gigantic buildings, arranging themselves into neatly stacked rows all in order and making sure to secure it. They clamber into the enclosed spaces through holes in the structurally sound walls, and gasp as they see the sheer bounty of all of the stuff that they can purchase for monetary sacrifice.

In fact, the items that are there are in such plenty that anyone can have virtually anything they can think of, or see. Heck, I wouldn’t doubt the stores would sell customers the cardboards cutouts used to hold the items for a good enough price….

Anyway there are all sorts of these kinds of places. Places that sell just things to cover our beautiful God created flesh, things to eat, things to just drink, things to give to children to break and destroy, things that sparkle on your ears and wrists and fingers, things that you read, things that you really don’t need but are fun anyway, things that drive you to more places like this, things to listen to, things to watch, there are even places like this that come together and collectively share one big roof. These are like the marketplaces of stores and they are called Malls…

These stores, even though they all have the same function, they compete against each other. They put videos on television screens that you bought in a store that tell you to come where their stuff is so that you can buy that instead of someone else’s stuff. They make huge posters and get people to dress up in crazy outfits and wave around signs, just to get you to walk through their wall holes. They spend the money that they have been given for their stuff to get stuff to make their store more appealing or enticing. 

In short, stores are either the best or the worst thing that has ever happend to the human race. 

The only thing I wonder is if it is good for us in such large quantities, or if this just causes more confusion and unhappiness than before we had the choice.

~Miss Myké

Its a big, big house… with lots and lots of space

So, I find it difficult for me to admit, but I live in a big house.

Yes, I hate it too.

Because you know, you have that thing where everyone thinks the girl who lives in a huge house is rich, and snotty. Well most people are really really surprised when they drive up my driveway, and that is a good thing to know… but still I don’t want to be pinned as someone that lives in a big house.

I know, I know, there are people out there in third world countries that don’t even have homes… and right here in the United States for that matter. 

But that is just my point, what is the point?

I mean, you do have a whole ton more space than about 99% of the humans on this planet all to yourself. And, of course, you can train for the next winter marathon right in the comfort of your own home. And there always is the fact that if you love to paint, you can paint huge everlasting murals on the walls of your house and have a full art gallery for you and the other members of your family to enjoy. 

I personally don’t want to run a marathon, need more space than other people that have smaller homes, or paint THAT much (I am having trouble finishing my room alone…) And besides living in a huge house makes the members so separated from each other.

Besides, parties suck when you have a big house, especially when its a small group of people, more space breaks people apart. 

I mean, that the more room you have for people to be liberated, the more they are going to take  the most advantage of it. 

You would think this would actually solve many argument problems…. it really doesn’t. After the incident, you just go hide off in the little corner of the house and feel alone. More alone than ever. 

Space just sucks sometimes. 

I really hate it when something has the adverse effect that was intended.

~Miss Myké

(Also big kitchens are the worst…. I don’t like to have walked a marathon just to cook me up some supper!)