Felt Flower

last sunday i made fabric flowers with several of my friends here at school. it was really fun, and i'm pretty proud of the flower i made, so i figured i'd put a picture on here.

it was the first time i'd ever made one, and i didnt even have a pattern :)

Phoenix

Sometimes i think it'd be really cool if i were a phoenix. I mean, not the whole immortal thing, but all the other characteristics. I may not know too much about them, but i still think it'd be cool to be one for a bit. Think of it. If i were a phoenix, i could fly, i'd have awesome colorfull feathers, i'd be the kind of thing that myths and legends are written about, and i could randomly burst into flames! Can you imagine talking to someone and then have them spontaneously combust right in front of your eyes? I would love to watch that person's face. one minute i'd be talking to them, and then (insert whatever sound spontaneous combustion makes), i'm on fire! Then I'd get reconfigured from the ashes and just pick up the conversation right where i left off, as if nothing had happened :)
the look on their face would be priceless.
And that is why i think it'd be cool to be a phoenix.

The UDP Diet

Last week was a pretty tiring week for me, and one morning I reaped the unintended consequences of me being so sleepy. I was in line, getting food and talking to Cally, when i tried to put my food on my plate. What i did not realize, however, was that i had subconsciously flipped my plate upside down in my hand. After everyone around me (including myself) had a good laugh at it, i sat down and began to eat off of the bottom of my plate. since an upside down plate isnt something you expect to see at breakfast, the conversation at my table soon turned to my plate.
After a few more laughs and smiles, we decided that i had stumbled across a new diet fad that would soon be sweeping the nation: the UDP (upside down plate) diet. You see, the bottom of a plate is always as big or smaller than the top of the plate. So if you flip your plate upside down, you have less space for your food. This will help you to take smaller portions by giving you a smaller plate. Yet you won't look weird for having a smaller plate, because it looks like it's the same size as everyone else's plate (only slightly different).
So now you have heard the latest and greatest new diet plan. Go, and spread the word! Even if no one actually uses this as a diet, the mere story of it might cause a small cheek or ab workout :)

Random Cephalopod Info

So on the long drive back to school from spring break, I learned several really cool things about the octopus and the giant squid. For example:
octopi are very intelligent

          - you can train one to unscrew a jar

          -you can train one to open a lock with a key

          -you can put a lock in the tank, give the octopus a key in a closed jar and have it open the jar, take the key and unlock the lock.

unfortunately, i couldn't find any lock videos.

also, concerning giant squid:
scientists know very little about giant squids because once they catch them, no matter how similar to its original environment it's kept in, the squid will die almost immediately. so they dont know if/where they congregate, where their breeding grounds are, what their habits are, etc. they're not even positive why they die once captured.

Michelangelo

Relatively recently, I had to do a report on Michelangelo for my Church History class. So after a bit of studying, I found out a ton of awesome information about him that I never knew before. It's crazy how much about him we miss out on when we only think of him as a most-likely-non-Christian painter who did the Sistene Chapel ceiling. Even though it looks like a lot, it's well worth your time. Here are some of the awesome things I learned about him:

-He was a very talented poet, painter, sculptor, and architect as well as a painter.

-He left many of his works unfinished.

-When he was a painter’s apprentice, he forged one of his master’s paintings and sold it as a prank.

-Although he aspired to depict ideal beauty in his art, he cared very little about personal hygiene. He often wore his shoes for months at a time, so that when he finally took them off, skin would come too. He also slept very little and ate very little.

-Most of his work he never signed, except the pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica. The only reason he signed that was because he heard that another sculptor was getting the credit for it among the people.

-Marble for David statue was flawed- rejected by another sculptor.

Sistine Chapel:

-          He originally didn’t want to paint it

-          4 yrs to complete

-          Designed his own scaffolding

-          The pope wanted him to put gold on it after he was done because he said that “it will look poor” if he didn’t. But he didn’t want to rebuild the scaffolding, so he convinced the pope to keep it as it was by saying “those who are depicted there, they were poor too”.

Ceiling Design:

-          On the north and south walls, there were 2 murals painted by other artists. One was the life of Christ and the other was the life of Moses, representing the old and new testaments. Michelangelo integrated the ideas of both with his ceiling plans by having his be the story of genesis in view of the gospel.

-          He also integrated the 2 by painting the outer edges of the ceiling with the lineage of Christ and the prophets who foretold of His life.

-          On the four corners, He has scenes that depict redemptive sacrifice, faith, and salvation.

-          There are 9 panels on the ceiling and the themes are grouped in 3s. The first 3 by the altar are about creation, depicting God’s creative character and perfection. The middle 3 show how humans were made for a perfect relationship with God and how they broke that relationship. The last 3 depict the faithfulness, deliverance, and sin of Noah.

-          As a person walks towards the altar, they are walking from the sin of Noah towards the Almighty and perfect God according to the ceiling.

-          Art critics also say that there are certain aspects of the ceiling that hint at Christ, (like the tree of knowledge of good and evil being cross-like), but I personally don’t really see it.

 

-He never married.

-He gave much of his artwork away to friends.

-He was fiercely loyal to his friends.

-When a papal employee criticized nudity in the Last Judgment, he painted him as the prince of hell.

-We’ll get to meet him in heaven. He was a strong Christian who believed in justification through faith.

-He was most likely protestant in his beliefs, but never broke from the Catholic Church (this was called being a Nicodemite. He even used his face as a model for the face of Nicodemus in one of his Pietas).

 -He studied and applied the New Testament and Old Testament. He also read Biblical commentaries.

-He earned money like a rich man, yet lived as a poor man.

-He gave most of his money away to support most of his family and the poor.

-When he heard of women who were too poor to get married (because they couldn’t afford a dowry), he would pay for them to be able to get married.

-Saw loving others as a way to love God.

In View of An Impending Graduation

Recently I've been thinking about my upcoming graduation and about how little time I have left here at my dearly beloved school.
Not wishing to dwell to much on the negative, I have tried to come up with other ways of refering to graduation.
Here is what I have come up with: passing, our departure, the end, we have met our expiration date, we have exceeded our time together, parting, no longer with eachother, no longer here, going to a different place, away, on an extended vacation from eachother, going in a different direction, being let go, our bodies are part of a permanent outplacement, kicking the schoolbucket, the final farewell, our last hurrah, adios-ing, seeing you way later, not so sweet a sorrow, hasta la vista baby, until we meet again, riding into the sunset.
So basically, graduation is similar to dying. Fortunately, "death cannot stop true love"-Wesley. And hopefully one day, "I'll be back"- Arnold.

ruminating on rivalries

have you ever noticed how rivalries are always like North vs. South or East vs. West? why are there no Southwest vs. Northeast rivalries? or even North vs. East? i just don't understand.