Jane Austen

Which Jane Austen Character are You? (For Females) Long Quiz!!! created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Elizabeth Bennet As one of Austen's most beloved characters, Elizabeth Bennet represents what most women would like to become: strong, independent, and loyal. Of course, she has her faults including a stubborn will of iron and a clinging to first impressions. Overall, Lizzie is bright and lovable...something to admire and aspire to. Elizabeth Bennet 72% Emma Woodhouse 63% Elinor Dashwood 63% Jane Bennet 59% Marianne Dashwood 56% Charlotte Lucas 50% Lady Catherine 19%

Latest Frustration

I’ve been slowly spring cleaning my apartment. I’ve gone through closets, drawers, and hidden crevices pulling things out to organize and to get rid of. I’ve got two garbage bags of clothes to donate as well as other random things. What I want is to ship these clothes to Tanzania where a people truly in need and who stole a chunk of my heart can benefit from them. However, it seems as if that is much more difficult than one would think. In fact, unless I meet someone who is actually going to Africa soon, it’s impossible. All international organizations want money (which I don’t have to give) and only money. I’ve been told if I ship them to the missionaries in Tanzania they will have to pay a lot of money to even get the clothes! I’m not worried about my costs (I can ship them for not too much) but the fact that the missionaries would have to pay for the donation is bizarre to me. I’ve just spent hours on the internet looking for organizations in the states where I could ship these boxes to for them to deliver or take with them when they go. I’ve come up completely empty. It seems as if the only option is Goodwill where the likelihood of my clothes ending up in a thrift store in America, where middle and upper class teenagers are looking for cheap clothes (no stone throwing here…I’ve done it too), seems to be much more likely than them ending up in Africa. I’m frustrated by the fact that even the poor in America make more money than the average person in Africa. We live in a world where panhandlers make more money a year than I’ll ever make (some making much more than 100,000 a year). How is it with all the push for relief for Africa and all the celebrity speeches and red Gap t-shirts, there isn’t a place to send those red Gap t-shirts after we’ve worn them?! It’s not like Gap takes donations for clothes to send, and I haven’t seen Angelina’s (or any other actor who’s made a promise to help Africa) address for us to send clothes to for them to take. I’m enraged! I’m frustrated beyond explanation! And, I’m sad for the lack of help I’m able to give.

Another Charlie Video

Here is one of our favorite Charlie videos. It's about a year old, but it's still great! Of course, we're sitting around the table eating cake!

Great Albums

I was having a conversation with some friends on Sunday about VH1’s top songs of the nineties. It brought up a lot of songs that should have been on there, and it reminded me of great albums. I decided to make a list of my favorite albums. Note, these are full albums; they are the albums that you put in and listen to completely through from beginning to end. They are the albums with no bad songs. Obviously I’ve excluded live albums and greatest hits because those are supposed to be full of great songs. Also not included are several classic albums that I’m not as familiar with and am just now going back and getting to know them (several Zeppelin albums, Sticky Fingers by the Stones, and more). I put the albums in some sort of chronology; it’s not necessarily when the album was released but when in my life I listened to the album or began loving the album. What I found as I went through was that many of my favorite artists don’t have an album that I can listen to completely that isn’t a greatest hits. I also found that many of my favorite songs were on albums that weren’t that good. Some of the albums included here have proven themselves to be albums classically included in lists like these; others have not. Some are included because they personally matter to me; many mark a time period in my life. But here you go. I have to say I recommend all of the albums on this list (with the exception of Dare to be Stupid. If you missed it in the 80s, it’s not worth going back to…but it definitely was priceless for it’s time.)

Endless Summer – Beach Boys
Love Songs – Otis Redding*
Dare to be Stupid – Weird Al Yankovic
Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi
Appetite for Destruction – Guns ‘n Roses
Blind Melon – Blind Melon
Jars of Clay – Jars of Clay
Throwing Copper – Live
Circus – Lenny Kravitz
Voodoo Lounge – Rolling Stones
Four – Blues Traveler
Deluxe – Better than Ezra
August and Everything After – Counting Crows
Jagged Little Pill – Alanis Morissette
Soup – Blind Melon
Miss Saigon – Original London Cast
Wide Open Spaces – The Dixie Chicks
Evolution – Martina McBride
Almost Famous – Soundtrack from the movie
Are You With Me? – Cowboy Mouth
Fly – The Dixie Chicks
Closer – Better than Ezra
Glorify, Edify, Testify – The Martins
Moonlight Towers – Moonlight Towers
Hot Fuss – The Killers
Sounds of Home – Paid in Full
Gold – Ryan Adams
Like You Were Never There – Moonlight Towers
Raising Sand – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

*While this may come close to a greatest hits type, it was released in Redding’s lifetime, and it’s selection was quite limited. So, it is included.

Please feel free to resond and let me know what you think. Are there albums you think should be on here that I've left off? Are there ones on here you don't think should be? Let me know...

Une chanson pour mon amie, Yvette (a song for my friend, DiAnne)

Mon Amie (My Buddy en francais)
Mon amie, mon amie
ou que vous alliez, Je vais
mon amie, mon amie
mon amie et moi

Yea, these are the things I come up with in French class.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

I woke up from my afternoon nap and went out to my car. I was shocked to see my car covered in about an inch of snow! The snow was still falling down and heavily! I ran to get some supper and my phone from a friend's house, and the roads were slowly getting more slippery. The last time I hung out in snow I was visiting DiAnne in DC. The last time I played in snow in the south? My freshman year of college! There was enough snow to make a snowball to virtually throw at my nephews. Just when I put up my Christmas music, I walk outside and see a winter wonderland!

Blind Melon

Some of you may know (and some may not) that the band Blind Melon has gotten back together. After Shannon died, the band looked for a new lead singer for awhile before giving up. All of the band members had moved on to new projects, but about a year and a half ago, Travis Warren joined the remaining members of Blind Melon as their new lead singer. They toured this fall for the first time in twelve years. The band will tour again starting in February, and they will have an album out around March.

I'll not get into the role Blind Melon has played in my life, and I'll not wax poetically about the good times at their concerts or hanging out backstage and on the tour bus when I was in high school. Instead, I'll just say that the three shows I saw in a matter of a week were phenomenal. Each were different...different songs, different crowds, and different venues. Yet, all of them were amazing. The last two shows were even more special because Blind Melon was opened by Moonlight Towers. The lead singer of Moonlight Towers, James, and the guitarist from Blind Melon, Rogers, are brothers. A Moonlight Towers show is amazing in its own right, but adding it to a Blind Melon show made for two nights of old friends and great music. Here is a slideshow of the pictures I took throughout the three concerts:

Happy New Year's, Friends

I spent New Year's Eve night with my friend, Wes. We went to a party at my friend Travis' house before going to Colonial Heights to hang out with the youth. I realized how long I've been gone when the only students I knew were 11th grade or older, and my old Sunday School girls were there as adult volunteers. However, being gone hasn't changed the love that I have for so many people at my Jackson church, and hanging out with the youth, the adult leaders, and Wes reminded me of how much the love and support of the people of Colonial Heights had carried mem through so many different struggles, surprises, and joys of my life over the past ten years. As I stood by a bonfire watching Craig Brown's front door burn and cracking jokes with David, Drew and Spencer, I stopped for a moment and thought that there was nowhere else I would rather be on New Year's than there in that moment.
I love the New Year. It brings a little more excitement to the post-Christmas blues plagued life. It's also a clean slate. It's a perfect precipice of past and future. It gives a chance to glance back and to look forward and make adjustments. I quit making New Year's resolutions years ago. I never stuck to them, and they were never things my heart was in. This year, I decided to make a few resolutions. They are only things that I care about, that I really want to change, and things I can put my heart into (apparently no longer ending sentences in prepositions isn't one of them). There are actually lots of them, and they are organized by priority in my life. I won't tell them all to you, but here are a few. I would love for you, my blog friends, to help hold me accountable. Feel free to drop me a line asking or ask about some of them when you see me. Here's a portion of the list:
Do a morning Bible study
Get back to reading the Bible every night before going to bed
Finish my dissertation as soon as possible
Work on all daily school work before watching tv at night (no procrastinating)
Write a letter to a friend at least once a month
Make out a new budget and stick to it
Exercise 30 min. at least three times a week.
Take lunch to school to save money
Go to at least one GSU athletic event once a month
Do something adventurous or new at least once a month
Declutter my apartment and life...streamline
Better prepare for my classes in order to be a better teacher
Blog more often instead of continuing to say I'll do it later (btw...I have a Blind Melon post with pictures coming)

I hope you all have a great 2008!