I'm glad you're not mine

Our friendship is better when no one's an owner.
It's a little bit weird and it's the best of whatever.
We are Laurie and Jo, we are Tommy and Nan
Our minds clash like pot lids and double our wings' span.

We get on like Adam with the tomboy that's Pepper.

You're the brasher, the cockier, grinning ego of my alter.

It worked for Mau and Daphne, for Eustace and for Jill

Why should a raucous friendship let romance make a kill?

Let's be riotous friends who poke fun on the phone
Who find fools in mirrors and toast being alone.

Thanks to Louisa May Alcott, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, and Harper Lee for writing boy/girl friendships that I aspire to.

Best of moms and best of women

25 songs

I did them all at once because I'm lazy a rebel. Looking over the list, an awful lot of favorites are left out. I mean, where's the punk? And why aren't they all just musicals? Ooh, I should redo this with nothing but soundtracks from musicals. Yes. 
Some of my choices also don't seem quite accurate, but OH WELL THAT IS JUST TOO TRAGIC, IS IT NOT?

1. Livin' La Vida Loca 

Child of the 90s, what can I say except 'aren't you glad I didn't put Hit Me Baby One More Time'? Also, I was convinced it said ‘black cats and voodoo dogs’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p47fEXGaba

2. Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The ONE song in my ex’s collection of ‘classic hits’ that actually made me sit up and pay attention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClCpfeIELw

3. Sisters, Sisters

My mom broke this one out whenever my sister and I fought, so…a lot. Yes, White Christmas was a holiday staple at our house. Just kidding. We watched it year round whenever we felt like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG7x8HWbDzU

And here…because you deserve to be happy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyybi7t634

4. Safe in Your Arms, Dear Jesus

Singing this to myself when I’m lost enables me to calm down enough to actually find my way (I’m not orientationally challenged. I am completely orientationally deficient). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgu-uZ9wAuw

5. Ode to Joy

Children won’t stop playing it on the piano. It’s the new ‘Let It Go’. I should be happy about that, but even Beethoven wears eventually if you only ever hear the same 30 seconds of his. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wod-MudLNPA

6. Rule the World

He loves Walk Off the Earth and he showed me this video. I love her preggy belly in it too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukigjUvwAR4

7. Paint the Town Green

I call this ‘The Anthem for the Homesick’. It comforts me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_hw8r2MWXo

8. Isn’t It Kinda Fun

I don't have a song for that so here's one for my (as yet unknown) last love :-D .

Barring further notice, my future husband is strongly recommended to utilize this song in his proposal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0As5d0hdmbA

9. Set Apart This Dream

I once got to spend an evening listening to this song on repeat while wearing a ballgown. I have scarcely ever felt more like I was in heaven. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU18VTPLdhM

10. Evolution of Man

Example rivals Eminem in ability to tell stories in rap and in choosing strings of assonant words, but somehow his lovey-doveyish songs end up being the ones I love the most https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiNXtIh2cR4

11. Why Can’t the English

Wordiness. Logophilia. Contempt for the uneducated masses. Need I say more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAYUuspQ6BY

12. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria

Musicals! What all other movies wish they were I wish all other movies were. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-VRyQprlu8

13. Watch the Sun Come Up

Listen to the song. Watch the video. Details will not be forthcoming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAgegxdVdFU

P.S. Take your mind out of the gutter.

14. N/A so I give you (*cough* totally unrelated *cough*) Goodnight and Go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqjWodek8ZM

15. Hula Hoop

Round and round it bounces in my head

Such a catchy catchy song. Catchy catchy song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYzQvj3icjs

16. Battle of the Five Armies

As a dedicated LoTR fan, this song crushed me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ir8rVl2Z4

17. Shut Up and Dance With Me

They stole the title for this song from what I say at all parties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JCLY0Rlx6Q

18. Rahadlakum 

From the brazenly terrible movie Kismet (and yet I would watch it again. And probably again). Still, if you couldn't watch Howard Keel sing a legal textbook or if it does not make you laugh, then my sense of humor is West and yours is East and never the twain shall meet! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VwzxiB4kMw

P.S. Remember, Edmund was ready to sell all of his siblings for this stuff.

19. About Fortune

I was fortunate enough to hear the original lyrics of this song which were kind of raunchy. This version is disappointingly SFW, lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd0RGaclGh0

20. You're the Worst theme - 7:30 AM

I love the theme songs from my favorite TV shows. From Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (sing rap it with me!), to Malcolm in the Middle's You're Not the Boss of Me, to the iconic I'll Be There For You, to At Least It Was Here (Community), to the smashing Big Bang Theory song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV4QEHmbUVQ

21. Whistling Away the Dark

Julie Andrews in one of my favorite movies and my favorite performance of hers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0of8-MxqVRY

22. Snowflake

Except that my friend sang it to me as a parody about my (to him abominable) love of sugar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLnIYAtGs0M

23. Losing My Religion

Reminds me of nights spent choking in smoke-filled bars with people I had nothing in common with. Makes me actually nauseous so I won’t even link to it lest YouTube get any horrible ideas about suggesting it to me.

24. Desi Girl

Bollywood dance troupe. Funnest dancing I ever did even if my thighs never hated me more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDIrpvH8MzE

25. Everything is Awesome!

Come on, it’s Lego AND Andy Samberg being his goofy self! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StTqXEQ2l-Y

Homesick for a home that isn't really a 'home'

For someone who considers wherever she is currently living as 'home', I sure get homesick a lot. For what home, exactly though? I often wondered that but I think I'm finally getting a handle on it.
I've just discovered the song 'Paint the Town Green' by The Script.

I certainly love Ireland a lot. A lot, a lot. So I'm partial to The Script, especially because of the faint, but very recognizable Irish inflection in their pronunciation and how they insert place names in some of their songs. 
But this song got me because it is, as I have re-christened it, 'The Anthem for the Homesick'. Every few months or so, I start to miss my friends or family terribly and then waste long hours online and listening to music at high volumes to try to distract myself from a situation I can do nothing about it. Ranting my feelings through writing often helps too. 
I moved to Italy as a young teenager and experienced a 'culture clash' there that was unlike anything I'd felt during my stays in Ukraine and Reunion previously. I'm visiting friends in Norway just now and am having fun observing and snapping shots of all sorts of little things that are different and amusing. Salad that is sold in little pots replete with dirt 'so you can be sure it is fresh'. 'Caution: reindeer ahead' signs along the road right outside town. Cans, milk cartons, and disposable plastic containers in the dish rack because trash must be clean before it is disposed of in one of six different specific waste collectors.
Each country has these little things that are so funny to foreigners. 
I love how clean this country is. Everyone moves in orderly lines. The houses and their lawns are sturdy, tidy, practical, and homey. There is virtually no litter and absolutely no graffiti. Cars drive civilly and always stop for pedestrians. A girl can roam alone where she wills at two AM or two PM and never hear so much as a honk or a yell. 
All of that is refreshing and wonderful, but what I love most about being here is the company of my friends with whom I can talk freely. Not only do we have the same first language, the same type of humor, the same speaking speeds, the same lingo, and the same interests, but we also have the same culture. Visiting at their home, I do not have food and drink aggressively pushed on me the second I walk in the door. I crashed at a friend's after a party and in the morning I saw the sink was full of dishes so I did them while my friend prepared breakfast and he was all cool, like 'I don't even know why you're doing those, but fine, wtv'. His sister with whom he shares the apartment drifted in from her bedroom a little while later still half asleep and did not snap into 'public face/perfect hostess' when she saw a guest. Instead, she ignored me, made her coffee and then sat at the table with us and proceeded to chatter as if we'd known each other for ages without bothering with any actual introduction. 
And I was SO comfortable with that. That level of casual, low-pressure, nonchalance is EXACTLY what I feel best with. And I haven't even specified that not having to answer any BORING questions about the whos, the wheres, and the whys of my life was half of the delight of the whole experience. 
Oh for more of those discussions where we exchange opinions on things that are of actual interest and relevance to all parties!
So all that to say, I appear to be 'peoplesick' and not 'homesick'. Sigh. Thank You, God, for the internet. It does alleviate the pain a lot.
Since I am in Norway and don't want to end this post on a downer, I give you...

morituri nolumus mori

I HAVE TO KNOW. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD NOT...LOST?

'At the cards, you mean?'

YES. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

Granny laid the baby down carefully on the straw, and smiled.

'Well,' she said, 'for a start... I'd have broken your bloody arm.'

I keep trying to remember my fave Death quotes but that is what keeps coming to mind. Maybe I like it because it says that Death isn't all-powerful even if he is all-present.

I read and watch Hogfather every year and love seeing Terry's cameos in Discworld movies. When you see him there and hear his kind grandfatherly voice playing a police officer in BBC's stellar radio play of Good Omens, one tends to lose sight of truths like Neil Gaiman: 'Terry Pratchett isn't jolly. He's angry'.

So much as glance at a novel though - especially a later one - and one immediately finds the angry Terry again. In story after story, with character after character he hammers his point in with deadly clarity: 'Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.'
It is no wonder that, as Neil Gaiman so eloquently - and yet so simply - puts it
Terry Pratchett is not one to go gentle into any night, good or otherwise. He will rage, as he leaves, against so many things: stupidity, injustice, human foolishness and shortsightedness, not just the dying of the light. And, hand in hand with the anger, like an angel and a demon walking into the sunset, there is love: for human beings, in all our fallibility; for treasured objects; for stories; and ultimately and in all things, love for human dignity.

In my opinion, John Green's 'slowly then all at once' quote doesn't come anywhere near this one:

"His heart beats faster every time he looks at you, and yours skips a beat every time you see him."

I finally understand those people who embrace Shakespeare or other writers as their religion now. One day, when I've researched the topic as thoroughly as I'd like, I will write a loooooong post about the religion one can pull from Discworld. Not the one with the gods who like atheists because they're something to aim at, but the one with principles like:

“But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d´hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it would be silly.” 

and

"Now if I'd seen him, really there, really alive, it'd be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched 'em like a father and cared for 'em like a mother...well, you wouldn't catch me sayin' things like 'there are two sides to every question' and 'we must respect other people's beliefs.' You wouldn't find me just being gen'rally nice in the hope that it'd all turn out all right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin' sword."

and

“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”

and

“Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.”

and 

"As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up."

and

“Personal isn’t the same as important."

Great. Now I've practically gone and written the post. Good thing there's so much more to say.
To borrow Rincewind's motto from 'The Last Hero' morituri nolumus mori (we who are about to die don't want to). Dear Terry, how so many of us wish you hadn't died. It is sooooo consoling to know that The Shepherd's Crown and The Long Utopia are on their way at least.
I'm one of those people who names their things. Not everything, just my personal possessions, and always literary - obviously. My USB sticks are Athelstane and Cedric (Ivanhoe), and von Lipwig.

Putting <meta http-equiv=”X-Clacks-Overhead” content=”GNU Terry Pratchett” /> into my Tumblr html and as a Chrome plug-in was a great comfort and still is. It soothes me to know that the most appropriate tribute to my favorite author possible is racing around the globe every day from a million accounts. 
Read more about that here.

"Time is running out": Neil Gaiman on why Radio 4's Good Omens is really for Terry Pratchett
Good Omens was such a lovely Christmas present and the most apropos of Easter ones. I thank BBC and Neil Gaiman and all the rest of those involved for giving that to us and I'm so grateful Neil had the foresight and the care to get this done right in time.
668: The Neighbor of the Beast, Terry Pratchett's autobiography/memoir, and Paper Soldiers are my top three unfinished books that I WILL read one day if I have to go to an alternate universe to do it!

This post is a mess because I want to say and show soooooo much that I can't. This will have to do for a start. 
Until later, here are a couple more of my favorite articles and interviews from and with Neil Gaiman (another favorite of mine who will eventually have posts about his work here) about and with Terry Pratchett.

‘That’s how I want to remember Terry’: Neil Gaiman reminisces about Pratchett

Terry Pratchett - an appreciation

Gaiman & Pratchett, Together Again... Almost

Happy birthday, Sir Terry Pratchett. 

Thank you for everything.

Boys in books parody

Below is my response to the lovely and effervescent Carrie Hope Fletcher whose online gloriousness resides here: 

http://carriehopefletcher.com/
https://twitter.com/CarrieHFletcher
http://www.youtube.com/carrie
http://www.alliknownow.com

You totally should not click on any of those links, and you DEFINITELY shouldn't subscribe to ItsWayPastMyBedtime.

HAH! Are you crazy? Go click on ALL the things! She is totally worth your time.

We do have somewhat different taste in books, however, so I parodied her song to cover as many of my favorite fictional fellows as I could. Is it still a parody if you are 100% sincere?

Anyway, maybe someday someone will sing this for me and I’ll get to act in my (mostly) own music video :-)

Boys in books

It started off with Laurie,

But then Athos came along

I had a thing for Earnest

But my love for Rhett is strong

Or maybe even Atticus

No, but that would just be strange

These boys in books are better

'cause they're never gonna change

I wish I was Rowena

'cause that Ivanhoe is fit

And I'd date Clovis Sangrail

If I thought he would commit

Or maybe Uncle Oswald

Oh, but he’s weird in the buff

These boys in books are better

And I just can't get enough

Of reading everything about them

These guys that we'll always depend upon

And maybe there's a guy out there just like them

Who's looking for a girl like Buttercup...

Nah!

These boys in books are better

'cause they'll be here forever

And we'll always be together

And you can take me bowling

If you were made up by Tolkien

I was sold on Shadow

Who's strong and brave and tall

But then I met farm boy Westley

Who I think seduced us all

But Dan is where my heart is

So Bessie move aside!

But why can’t I have fallen for

The ones that didn't die?

Don't even get me started

On Boromir the Brave

I've looked for Mr Knightley

Girls, he really don't exist

But then again, there's Carrot

So Angua, get out the way

'cause I love a bit of cheesiness

And I love a good cliché

So boys I hope you're taking notice

'cause I'm one in a huge majority

I think that I'm more of a Magrat Garlick

But if you ask me nice, I could be Eowyn

These boys in books are better

'cause they'll be here forever

And we'll always be together

And you could be a player

But I won't care if you're by Terry

Don't make me use the eighth spell

Come on, Teppic

And please bring Elendil

Greebo’s body

With Aragorn’s looks

But hurry up

Before I close the book

These boys in books are better

'cause they'll be here forever

And we'll always be together

And you can be my man

If you've been written by Gaiman

These boys in books are better

'cause they'll be here forever

And we'll always be together

And I know it's an addiction

That I'm in love with fiction

But as long as I'm still breathing

I just have to keep on reading

And it's gonna be red letter

When I find a guy that's better

Than Athos, Westley, Clovis, Jason,

Vetinari, Vimes and Carrot,

Dan, Cyrano, Rhett and Knightley

Earnest, Shadow, Sherlock no chance

Athos, Westley, Clovis, Jason,

Vetinari, Vimes and Carrot,

Dan, Cyrano, Rhett and Knightley

Earnest, Shadow, Sherlock no chance

Athos, Westley, Clovis, Jason,

Vetinari, Vimes and Carrot,

Dan, Cyrano, Rhett and Knightley

Earnest, Shadow, Sherlock no chance

 (Boys in books are better

‘Cause they'll be here forever)

(Boys in books are better

They'll be here forever)

(And it's gonna be red letter

When I find a guy that's better)

(And it's gonna be red letter

When I find a guy that's better)

And it's gonna be red letter

When I find a guy that's better than you...

In order of mention, this is a tribute to:

Louisa May Alcott (Little Women and Jo’s Boys)

Alexander Dumas (The Three Musketeers)

Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind)

Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe)

Saki (Chronicles of Clovis)

Roald Dahl (My Uncle Oswald)

Neil Gaiman (American Gods)

William Goldman (Princess Bride)

J.R.R.Tolkien (Lord of the Rings)

Jane Austen (Emma)

Sir Terry Pratchett (Discworld series)

Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock series)

Shoutout to those whose names are REALLY hard to fit into a song, such as Edward Rochester, Augustus Waters, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and dear Faramir!

A letter to 16 year old me from almost 26 year old me

This was meant to be posted yesterday on my birthday, but Sir Terry Pratchett had just passed on and I didn't want to post anything that wasn't about him or his work just then. Plus, I was busy grieving with my fellow fans. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.

Hi Esther.

I'm happy to say that ten years on, you are doing fairly well. Alright, you aren't doing anything majorly fantabulously glorious of even the 'minor celebrity' variety, but you are in the right place, doing the right things, taking care of people who love you and are grateful for you.

You've been away from mom for years now and have learned a lot about taking care of yourself - be proud of that. In fact, you have even learned that you are capable of taking care of other people - and pets! Not ucky wild ones though, thankfully.

You really should get off your butt and exercise and not eat those quantities. Come on, I know you probably won't take this advice because you won't bother to, but at least think about trying! By the way, I know why your eyebrows are that thin, but it's a terrible look for you. A teeny weeny bit thicker will be just right. Shut up, I've had more internet, I know more than you. Also, read that English Lit book from cover to cover. Or even just Hamlet. I swear you'll thank me - well, yourself. There are some stunningly good books waiting for you by the way. You're going to lose so many hours of sleep over them. You're welcome. Not that that would be any different from what you do now.

July 2005

Yes, you've made some dumbass choices that have hurt others pretty badly. Sorry about my choice of words, it just does seem fitting from here. I wish you would stop yourself. I wish I could clamp my hands over your mouth before you said the stupid words. I wish I could stop you from doing those things that will end up hurting other people. For all that, you are a thoughtful person. The bad things you've done were not because you didn't think them through - they're because you thought them through and came out confused and/or angry. I can't say as much for the things you said. Most of the time you really were plain mean, but you can work on that. At least you'd better!

Now, because I care, and because this is I-can't-freaking-stress-this-enough important, here is a word about boys (cupping my hands around my mouth and shouting for all I'm worth): stay the hell away from the ones currently around you! Really. Regret is a short word but the burning shame of those memories will squiggle in your heart long after they shouldn't matter any more. You'll get plenty of chances with plenty of decent guys, I promise! Just respect yourself enough to say no. To yourself, to them, to yourself again. You are better than you think you are. Not in the high and mighty bad way. Not better than them - just better than YOU think you are. 

Make what right choices are in your power to make day by day and soon enough everything will change. You don't have to do what other people do, be they girls or guys or your peers or not your peers. Hold yourself to standards that are as high as you think you can reach plus a little bit. Grit your teeth and chant over and over that this is just learning time. Get through it, and you'll graduate and have a use for all that knowledge and all those skills.

"What skills?" you gripe at me?  Yeah, yeah, I know. You appear to be as talented as a fish on a tightrope. So maybe you are a fish and maybe you are on a tightrope just at present. One day, you'll be in the sea and then suddenly everyone will see that you can swim as well as anyone. Or maybe you're more like a tightrope walker who is in the sea at the moment. Yeah, that analogy makes slightly more sense. Hopefully. 

Anyway, you can't swim for beans and you feel like such a loser next to all these people who are practically mermaids. Look, if you can dog paddle long enough you'll reach the shore, climb onto that wire and then they'll see who rules. 

Honestly, I don't know exactly how proud you'd be of me if you could see me now. I know you'd be quite proud of the highlights and encouraged to know that you'd touched many people's lives VERY deeply, but in the every day...well, I can do better. I know you didn't see me, but this has got me thinking. I should change. I do need to try harder to be a better person. "Prepare now, you never know what's going to spring on you!" is my motto. Actually, in a couple years you're going to read a much, much better version of that, but I can't tell you now because that would be a spoiler akin to "you currently have nine red-headed children", etc etc.

By the way, you're going to become quite good (many people whose opinions seriously count will tell you that you are VERY good) at MANY things that you are crap at now. Stuff you don't even dare try now will be as easy as wasting time online in a few years.

You are going to grow into your own person, with opinions, habits and stances that you freely express and proudly advocate. And some that you keep to yourself because in some form or another that is the loving thing to do ;-)

Yes, lots of things are sucky and angering right now, and yes, they will continue to be, because, umm, LIFE, but just you wait for the beautiful, the breath-taking, the glorious things that will fill hours and days and weeks and collective months and dare I say YEARS of your time! You will find so, so many things to be ecstatically happy about. You will revel in awesomeness and wonder how anyone can be sad in a world that holds such, such magnificent things. And the best part is that those things will keep coming. They're not all stored up in Heaven or at the very end of your existence here or at any one part of your life. They are splashed and blobbed all along your life's path and you are going to enjoy millions of them!

You're great, but not very much right now compared to what you are going to be.
Head up, standards high, hands busy. You'll go far.

October 2014

Happy would-be birthday, dear Bobby Driscoll

Dear fellow Pisces, Bobby Driscoll, 
I watched So Dear to My Heart countless times as a child and am endeavoring to keep your memory alive and loved by showing it to other children. 
Your higher-than-I-thought possible-left eyebrow, your earnest manner of speaking, how adorable you looked in overalls, and the stubborn expression you so often wore always come to mind first when I am reminded of you. I'm sorry for what you went through but I think you've found happiness now. You are a star to me now and for as long as I will live.
Rest in peace.

Background monologue for a friend's short film project

My friend asked me to write a 100 words-ish monologue for her film's project. I missed the point of it entirely (hey, Communication! You and I should totally get to know each other sometime!) so this was unused but hey. For something dashed off in a couple minutes I think it's alright :-)

Every day I pry my eyes open, eat breakfast and march off to school. I hang out with friends in the same old park or at the cinema where the movies all seem to be interchangeable in their predictability. I come home to where the view hasn’t changed since before my parents can remember, I eat, I slave over my homework, and then collapse in bed. My days cycle through this routine with a repetition that rivals the seasons for regularity and duplications of each other. When I graduate I can go into business or …Is this all I can do?

Here is the finished film. Like my rooftop view? Too bad the trapdoor's always locked. Sigh.

Notice the monologue I ended up helping to rewrite. :-)

a resolution for 2015 and beyond

I will stop saying yes when I really mean no
Desist saying stay when I have to make them go.
Lay down the law though I shy from what's right
Be a shining example when I'd rather spit spite.
Fewer excuses, apologies only where due
Say what I mean, give only right clues.
I'm finished pretending except where I must
I wish to blaze through my life, not a breeze but a gust.
Stomping then coddling, this is who I am
Some minutes a speed bump, some minutes a ramp.

Why I teach and why you should

Hi! I’m Esther. I’m from a very diverse background and am currently living in Bosnia. In someone’s bio I recently read “most of my favourite things are words” and realized that I’d probably never find a sentence that more aptly describes me. I discovered Pax Populi nearly a year ago and applied immediately because their goals matched my life’s mission so closely.

My student was a teenaged boy from Afghanistan who spoke English at a very basic level. I decided that my main goal for the four month teaching period we agreed on would be to broaden his vocabulary and deepen his conversational skills. To this end, our first session was spent simply chatting– telling him about myself, asking questions about his life, interests, studies, etc.  

Our next sessions had us reading and then discussing children’s books, favourite foods, holiday customs, learning football (soccer to you) terminology and simply brushing up on grammar. Another teenaged boy who was a couple years older sat through each lesson with my student and pitched in with translations and explanations from time to time when something was unclear. This was an enormous help and kept the lessons from getting halted or bogged down, especially on the occasions when our internet connection was less than perfect.

I looked forward to my tutoring days as opportunities to learn first-hand about another culture and form friendships. I plan to dive right back in when my schedule stabilizes once more.

As my favourite author, Terry Pratchett, says 'You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world? It's all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad ploughmen instead. It's all the people with talents who never even find out.’

Pax Populi is doing something about that and I want to be part of this change. I’m so glad you’re joining us.

Wishing you a lovely day,

--Esther CW

*I was asked to write 'a paragraph' about my ideas and experience as a tutor. Hah! ME write just one paragraph. Very funny. I suppose I'll master that art one day. :-D

We stand with eyes fixated on love.

That phrase has been in my mind for days...months now.
It might not be true all of the time or most of the time. 'Some of the time' is even pushing it. I'd venture to say that I stand with my eyes FIXATED on love hardly ever.
But whenever I DO remember it...I feel knocked off my feet with the wonder of it.
I picture myself standing - me, a mere mortal - head upturned, staring, unable to turn my eyes away from the marvel that is Jesus's glorious love for me, for that lady who was shouting at her kid, for that kind driver, for the teens spray painting their football team's name on that wall and for the grandfather catching his toddler granddaughter at the end of the slide.
That I am even allowed to stand in His sublime presence is a marvel to me. How do I dare? How is it even possible? Then it occurs to me that He was once like us - like me - and that He came to make us all daughters and sons of the King of Kings. We stand because He has raised us.
Our eyes, the windows to our souls - I hate that cliche phrase even while I realize that it is a true one - open wide and staring unblinking at His radiant self. We absorb Him into our beings and break into wide, cheek-challenging grins as the knowledge that this perfection incarnate loves US seeps into our possession.
My goal in life is to stand with eyes fixated on love forever.

This quote is courtesy of
/WHY I THINK YOU SHOULD UNAPOLOGETICALLY POST YOUR BEST MOMENTS from A Deeper Story @deeperstory

I miss 'proper Christmas'

I miss decorating the house properly. Properly means fully. Doing Christmas activities with the kids. Elaborate gift wrapping. Wreaths everywhere. Stars. Millions of stars. Manger scenes of many sorts. Carols - remixed versions and covers mostly.

But circumstances have conspired to prevent me. There's nothing for it. The best I can do is vow that I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

But I'll go easier on the decorating and the carols for ten months or so.

stopped, found, held

stop me
stop me, please Jesus
when I hurl myself at brick walls that aren't meant to move
when I stomp down paths that lead to dead ends
find me
find me when I fall down cracks I thought I could jump over
when I end up lost in places so far I wonder if I really have made it to infinity or beyond
hold me
hold me with Your hands clamped on my shoulders when I try to squirm away
when I curl into a ball of glowing shame at the newest addition to my personal museum of failures

but You are using those brick walls to stop me, aren't You?
and no matter how deep the crevice I've trapped myself in, You're right next to me, aren't You?
those are Your arms around me right when I think I might have managed to evade You, that maybe You stopped trying
then I remember that the only new addition to my personal museum of defeats is another failure to make You stop loving me.

Computer games: an apt analogy

This month, I feel like a computer game character racing down a path with no option to stop or turn back. I'm barreling headlong, staying as alert as I can for enemies, roadblocks, potholes or explosions.
I wish I wasn't running this particular course. It's like an insidious Boss level where you KNOW the creature you are facing is dangerous even though from an outsider's point of view he doesn't look so. People around are watching and wondering what the outcome will be.
I'm hardly any good whatsoever at this game - in fact it is my first time on this course. I know what my character's abilities are, it's just that I'm still learning to use them. Basically, I'm bluffing. I wonder if the creature I'm facing off against knows that. Sometimes, I think he does. Other times, I imagine that I pulled off the last stunt pretty well and maybe I will survive the whole grueling course. In my mad dash I'm forever jumping hurdles, swiping at the bonus points dangling above my head, and just hoping I see the next obstacle in time to dodge it. So far, I'd say I've been making it but that only makes me more tense. I really, really don't know if I can keep this up. Throw me a curve ball and it is all too likely that I will be taken down in ignominious defeat. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just me, but this is one of those games with a mission. If I get eaten by the big baddie, the consequences could be dire.
Note to self: sincerity is the most important thing. If I can fake that, I've got it made.

Seven word writing prompt

My strident, barefoot footfalls barely echo in the warm

The vestibule defies me like a waking, growling storm

Sophomoric wisdom slumbers on inside the dorm

A slaphappy panacea for the ills that plague the swarm

Bedizened, full of luster, caparisoned like a gorm

Ensconced, cached the way I flounder in the norm

Guess which seven.

By the way, this only just escaped being titled 'Any Given Psycho' which is a short story prompt (whose boards are you following on Pinterest?!?). I wanted to cheat and combine the two but my conscience stopped me from being so lazy even though I think it is a perfectly appropriate appellation. 

Even though I didn't have a psycho in mind when I wrote it. 

I think I know what "I love you" means.

"Dark Sonnet" by Neil Gaiman

I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such
although I liked a few folk pretty well
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch
for brave men died and empires rose and fell
for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands
and men have followed women into hell
in plays and poems someone understands
there’s something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands
for me love’s like the wind unseen, unknown
I see the trees are bending where it’s been
I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown
I really don’t know what I love you means
I think it means don’t leave me here alone

I love what Neil Gaiman writes but I beg to differ with him on the last line of this poem.
If "I love you" means "don't leave me here alone" it is selfish and demanding.
To me, "I love you" means "I won't leave you here alone". Giving of oneself willingly is true love in my opinion. If you really want to be together with them you'll make the effort to stay with them and to follow them into foreign lands and even to hell as Neil puts it.

A time you thought about ending your own life

My apologies, this isn't going to be a deep, meaningful post. This is a writing prompt I found on Pinterest.
Also, this is the third time I rant about something I deeply dislike. What can I say. I write about what makes me mad. If I am really happy about it, I tell the world in real life. If I'm really unhappy, I put it here where no one I know finds it. If you don't know me, for the love of a donkey, please tell me why you are reading this?!?!!
So, a time I thought about ending my own life. Or, 'my life' as it should be put since who else's could it be?
The first thing that springs to mine is during part two of The Hobbit movie.

Ooooh, Peter Jackson, I lied when I said I thought about ending my life while I watched it (even though the world is so much worse now that you've visited that atrocity on it). I only thought about ending yours.
Forgive the foulness in the picture. Courtesy of 9gag. Ahem. It's how I feel, alright?
I don't go to the cinema very often so it's always a special occasion for me. On top of it, this was my long awaited Christmas present to myself and I truly wanted to enjoy it. I very, very nearly walked out. Over and over again my legs tried to override my manners (I was there with friends) and save me from the heart-wrenching, puke-inducing horror that was before my eyes but I kept telling myself that it had to end, that I owed it to my fangirl inside to find out what else had been done - and oh-so-bloody-conspicuously not done so I merely clapped a hand to my forehead in an effort to assuage the grief and shock and prayed it wouldn't get any worse.
I've been a major fan of Tolkien since I devoured his books at age 14. I memorized the poems and my favorite passages. How many people do you know who could quote Quickbeam's lament? See, I bet you don't even remember who Quickbeam is! I learned phrases in Elvish and Dwarvish (I still know what to yell in case I ever charge into battle with an double-bladed axe). I spent hours reading up on the making of the movies, LOTR trivia, quizzes, and all sorts of things Middle-Earth. The Yahoo! email that I still use to this day is the names of two flowers that feature in some of my favorite scenes.
Enough of those fascinating and unique details though. What I wanted to say was that I loved the LOTR movies. Yes, they deviated from the books plenty, they cut out heaps, added tons, blah blah blah...I still think they were close enough. Say what you like, at least they did not make a mockery of the book as The Hobbit does.
Peter Jackson? What the hell happened?

The four-chord song...but with books (and yes, it's eight points)

Book rant. Beware.

Oh, also spoilers.

Just stayed up till 3:10 am to finish reading Me Before You. That's less impressive when you know that I do that any time I have a gripping book that's under 400 pages, but still. I certainly liked it, but honestly, I feel a bit jaded from reading/watching all these mushy love stories where

1. financially challenged, plain and/or clumsy, not-good-at-anything girl with likable qualities and one thing or other and that makes her stand out meets

2. insanely rich, incredibly good looking, standoffish (frequently arsehole) of a boy with mega personality issues

3. they don't get along

4. some event (usually involving her standing up to him and asserting herself in some way) breaks the ice

5. they slowly evolve into friends - he puts his arseholery in check, she learns all sorts of things about herself (usually at his insistence)

6. they find themselves at some special (usually romantically themed) event/location, get intimate

7. have a falling out of some sort, are all depressed without each other

8. get together and live happily ever after OR have a "tragic" ending

The earliest story with almost exactly these plot points that I can think of is Jane Eyre (although Pride and Prejudice fits the bill pretty closely too) and the most recent one I've read is Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell.

Twilight

About a Boy/Hugh Grant movies. Ahem.

Nearly-Weds

I did enjoy reading the book, but I just knew he was going to do the deed in the end even though I clung to the hope that the author might decide to suddenly spin things around. It was just one of those books where touching as it all was, the author was trying to make a statement about what she believes and it came through pretty clearly. 

I'm so sorry, you're not going to want to discuss books with me any more if I'm just going to lay into them and be so terrible but ever since the fateful week when I read all five of John Green's novels (starting with the Fault in Our Stars which I HIGHLY recommend in both book and movie form - although book first - you'll thank me), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (movie STRONGLY recommended, book was kind of a dark, troubled, confusing teenager's mind) I've looked at YA literature and these "deep" romancey novels in a different way. Btw, free life tip: don't ever overdose on YA lit. You come out thinking something is wrong with you for not having had all the same feelings and friends and experiences as the protagonists and hating everyone in the demographic the books were targeted to.

I watched an old Sean Connery action movie with a friend earlier this evening. He couldn't believe the way I picked every point of the movie apart, from nobody thinking of easier ways to get the guards out of the way while they robbed the safe, why did that hardened criminal panic and flee blindly instead of using his practically legendary skills to escape, to how unrealistic it was for someone to strangle another guy with one hand from an awkward angle, etc etc.

I've done the same with books for quite a while now. I pick apart the way the choice of words and how predictable the plot is. I hate, hate, hate the bland, weak, 'every man' characters that one is meant to relate to and the 'dreamy, perfect' ones you are meant to aspire to be in a relationship with.
Expect more, people! Your brain deserves better. You need better!
If an author can't do better than that, read someone else until they can.
I could rant forever but enough said.