My Gosh.

Leonard Pitts Jr. has opened my eyes.
He says newspapers are going extinct.
Impossible, you say, for newspapers to go extinct. Only panda bears and do-do birds do that. How can something that isn't alive die out?
Newspapers ARE alive. They tell the stories that no one sees, the stories that people wouldn't just find out on their own. And they reveal. Newspapers are a way of publicity, but they also bring a sense of accountability. People think twice before they do something they wouldn't want the entire community to read about the next morning.
Newspapers are important, useful, and absolutely necessary. Support them. READ them. And for goodness' sake, appreciate them.

Along those same lines,
Be careful with freedom of the press. Don't abuse it. Don't degrade it to an excuse to be crude or disrespectful. Don't rely on publicity or anonymity, for that matter. Freedom of the press, like all other freedoms, is an undeniable right, but mostly, it's a privelege.

What's in a name?

The first year at a new school, it's never you. And you KNOW that- you don't know anyone, so why should they know you? Still, every time, you can't help but turn around.
"Jenni!"
Nope. Not you. The other one. Always. So you end up looking like an over-eager fool every day. The only place you're guaranteed that someone is calling YOU is in your own home. And even there, you get called by other things. Nicknames, sibling's names, names of beloved pets...But at least you know it's you, unlike the uncertain new stomping grounds that you are forced to attend from 8:15 to 3:10 every day. 5 days a week, almost 7 hours a day of this confusion.
And then one day, you make a friend at school. That's the way it works, isn't it? I've been to a few new schools in my lifetime, and this is how things usually play out:
You get there, you walk around awkwardly repeating 15,607,698,705 times a day who you are and where you came from (knowing, of course, that most people won't remember) for about the first week, give or take a few days.
Suddenly, one person singles you out. They're that heaven-sent kid who won't leave you alone and is bound and determined to help you fit in. God bless those kids. They're like the biblical "man of peace" who you're supposed to find to help you get integrated into a community whenever you're trying to evangelize. They introduce you to their friends, pull up that extra chair at the lunch table, save you a seat in assemblies. And suddenly, a few people know your name. Every once in a while, when you turn around, it really IS you that someone is calling. Eventually, the correct assumptions come closer and closer together, until you've learned to distinguish which voices call your name and mean YOU. You can turn around to answer with certainty, and it's a good feeling. In fact, it's a great feeling.
See, there's something so wonderful about being known and being called by your name. My brother was the first person to really bring this truth to light in my mind. He knows a lot of people, and I mean a lot. Whenever we go places together, I've just come to accept the fact that we will see at least 2 or 3 people that he knows. But no matter how many people we see, he always knows their name, and every time he calls them by it, their face lights up.
"People like to hear their own name, Jen. It shows them you really do remember them. It's endearing," he said to me. That was a few years ago, but it made a big impression on me.
He's right. I know from experience, and so do you. That person who calls you by your name, even if you've only met once- they know YOU, they remember YOU, and they think YOU'RE important enough to remember.
It's a good way to make friends and influence people, as my mom would say. It's really not that hard to do, and it makes people feel so good. The new kid at school or church, the woman who checks you out at the grocery store, your lunch lady, someone who helps you find what you're looking for at the mall, your neighbors...just take the time to invest a little bit in them.
The look on their faces will be worth it.

Lauren Sanders is Awesome

By request, as you can imagine.
But really, I was thinking about my life the other day, and I just realized how truly blessed I am to be where I am. I have a wonderful network of friends, family who cares about me, and God. This is really just a shout out to everyone I'm close to. To those who give me a hug when you notice something is wrong, to those who celebrate with me when things go well, to those who invest in my life by just taking the time to be a part of it, thank you. To the people who are not that to me but are that to someone else, thank you, too. And to those lucky people like me who have people like that in your life, thank them.
I love you guys, and I realize it more and more every day. I only hope that someday, I can mean as much to someone as you all mean to me.

...And then the reason to sing is gone.

Michael Buble's voice is intoxicating. Who needs drugs or alcohol when you could just put his songs on repeat and allow it to take you wherever it wants? Now, I'm not one to get into pop culture, and I'm certainly not into celebrity crushes- and I'm not making an exception for him. But those notes...and the poetry in the lyrics...and his personable intonation...well, it's a lethal combination to my pride.
In the early hours of the morning at Sonic, I heard a song that made me really happy, so I asked my boyfriend David what it was since he always knows everything about music. Excitedly, he told me it was "Everything" by Michael Buble. To be honest, all I'd ever known from Buble was "Home," which was really good, but unfortunately and quite irrationally overplayed to extinction, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this song was by him. David and I discussed the coolness of the key change and the brightness of the lyrics and melody, and how it just made us feel good. I made a mental note to go home and look it up on Youtube so I could listen to it over and over and over and over again.
I did just that. :o)
Then, I decided to research it. I'm one of those annoying people who enjoys memorizing little-known details about things that I'm interested in. (My brother is to be credited for this, I think, along with lots of other habits and quirks that I have...he's an influential guy, not just to me, but to a lot of people.) I really just like to be informed, because ignorance (not the kind that you can't help, but the kind that you CAN help) is one of my pet peeves. So I always check up on things. So I found out that Michael Buble has a sad history with love songs & girls.
He was engaged for a while to Debbie Timuss (stage actress), for whom he wrote "Home. Then they broke off the engagement. Afterwards, backstage somewhere, he met Emily Blunt (English actress) and dated her for a while, and he wrote "Everything" for her...but they recently broke up, too. Kind of ruins a love song for you, doesn't it?
I mentioned this misfortune to Ray Smith, who replied in an interesting way. He said,
"Well of course it happened that way."
I was confused. Guy+girl+really sweet romantic song=breakup? Hmm...that's not usually how my math adds up (Then again, I'm not much of a math wizard. ...but still.) He proceeded,
"When a guy writes an incredibly romantic song for a girl, it goes one of two ways: she either loves it and goes crazy over him, or she gets really creeped out and claustrophobic and leaves him."
Sad but true, isn't it? It's even sadder that I can see the logic behind both sides. Man, the human mind is messed up.
All I have to say is that most girls that I know feel like this:
If someone wants to write us a song saying,

"And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything,"

they have our permission. Especially if they can sing like Michael Buble.

Dominication

It doesn't take much to wake me up, but I will admit to being groggy for my first half hour of consciousness. I'm not as bad as my brother is- he will have entire conversations that he never remembers, say outrageous things that we wish he could hear; he even slept through an earthquake once..or maybe it was twice. I, on the other hand, merely lack the ability to think coherently. But when my mom woke me up on Labor Day and told me that the very next day, we would begin hosting an exchange student from Switzerland for two weeks, I perked right up.

Why two weeks? Why the short notice? Mom knew the coordinator for his exchange program, and she was desperate for a house for him. You see, Dominic was going to be staying for 10 months with a family that lives out near Warner Robins, but there was a date mix-up, and they were still going to be on vacation for two weeks after he arrived. To make a long story short, Mom said we would be glad to take him until they came back.
For the first half of the day, we could list the things that we knew about him in one breath: His name was Dominic, he was 17 years old, he was from Switzerland, and he was deathly allergic to cats. Slowly, information came to us. He would go to Rutland. He played piano. He had designed his own website related to snowboarding. He might be shy at first, but he would warm up quickly. I even looked him up and added him as a friend on facebook. All signs were good.
The next day, Mom went to go pick him up from the airport. When I got home from piano, there he was, inhabiting my brother's room, standing right in front of me, extending his hand as a greeting. It was a bit surreal. We became fast friends, though.
We took turns playing piano (he's much better than I am), ate dinner, talked a bit about his life and his trip. I explained to him that the loud noise outside was crickets, and the concept of American football, and words that he didn't know.
Our two weeks ends tomorrow, when his real host family will pick him up, but our time has been great. From our house to Disney World to church to downtown Macon, I think Dominic has really enjoyed being here with us. As for us, I think we've enjoyed having him even more. He has a good heart- polite, gentle, expressive, and always willing him help. Dad will probably be the most lonesome after he leaves; he has to go back to living with two girls and a fluffball of a dog for companions.

Reflections...literally.

I like to play the piano. In fact, I love to play the piano. I've been taking lessons for about 7 years, but I've been playing for as long as I can remember. So I've gotten to a point where I can play without looking at my hands if I'm just playing for fun. Sometimes, I watch my reflection in the window next to our piano- it is really cool to watch my hands play from a side angle instead of staring down at the tops of them. On nights when I'm pressed for time, I combine studying and practicing by putting my notes in front of me while I practice and hoping they impress upon my mind. Most of the time, though, my eyes just search the room for something interesting to focus on. As the most utilized space in our house, our music room collects a various array of junk over the course of a day, and it's fun to check out.
Tonight, as I was attempting to work on one of my pieces and look around simultaneously, resting on our piano was a picture of a house across the lake from ours. The back of the house is beautiful- white staircases on either side leading up to a back porch, red brick, big windows; the works- and the reflection on the lake is breathtaking. Stunning as it was, the scene was not what made my focus turn to the picture. It was the fact that from where I sat, the picture was turned upside-down. It seemed inverted, like the blurry reflection was the actual house, and the house the reflection. I suppose the best way to understand how out of place it felt is to imagine an upside-down human face with eyes drawn on the chin to form a sort of "puppet" for a children's show.
Confession time: In my head, I am a motivational speaker to an imaginary audience. It's not like I catch myself inadvertently bowing to silent applause because of self-esteem issues or anything. My condition is a more mild case in which I take anything in my daily life- i.e. mowing the lawn, driving up a hill, or looking at a photograph- and turn it into an anecdote to use as a life lesson. So naturally (or more likely unnaturally since I don't know anyone else with this predicament), I began exploring the possibilities of my newfound, unsuspecting story target.
I began to wonder, what if life was like that upside-down picture? What if everything- ideas, thoughts, images- was convoluted, and the only way to clearly perceive things was to view them in or through something else? How distorted would our world be? But then I realized...that's kind of how the world is. In a day and age where sarcasm reigns as the dominant form of conversation, implications and undercurrents are the main form of comedy, and lies are considered to merely be a minor offense (if even frowned upon at all), not many things can be taken at face value anymore. In my opinion, that speaks poorly for our society, representing us as a people sure of nothing since truth and the literal word became options for a person to choose when it was convenient for him. We might as well be labeled "The Relative Generation."
If that's hard to follow, I apologize. I have the mind of a girl- we link all sorts of things together and then have to explain how we got from bacon to the cost of our prom dress. So maybe the concept, while still true, is a long-shot from its original inspiration...I'll have to work out the kinks. Hey, I never claimed to be a good motivational speaker.

Why all men should live underground. Period.

WARNING: The commentary in this post expresses views that stereotype both men and women for the purpose of making a point. Many girls like to hunt and lift weights, and many men like fashion and cooking, and I know that. Please don't hurt me. It just makes more sense this way.



I never really got into daytime tv series- not as a kid, and not now, really. Occasionally, though, I would catch an occasional sitcom. One day, 12 or 13-year-old Jenni was watching Boy Meets World; it was the episode where they're in Mr. Feeny's middle school class and they're talking about where they see themselves in the future. I don't remember a whole lot about it- something about Minkus saying he'd marry Topanga and Cory saying he'd never get married (ironic?)- but I do remember Topanga's response: She was wearing a toga and a crown of ivy, and she said that she envisioned a perfect feminist world in which women formed a cooperative socialist environment and all men were forced underground and used only for breeding purposes...or something like that.
She got a rowdy stage "candid laughter" from the make-believe audience. Admittedly, that doesn't say a whole lot about the joke since they strategically guffaw after every other sentence. All the same, it made an impression on me, even after all these years. So the other day in journalism class when Lindsey, Victoria, Bekah and I somehow got on the topic of how life would be without men, I proposed Topanga's solution, giving her all due credit. We were kidding around, of course, but it's something to think about.
What would the world be like without men? Cleaner? Probably not. I know plenty of messy girls...including myself. Smell better? Now there's a thought. But there is a flip-side: cologne. Girls, you know you love a moderate amount. Prettier? Maybe more color coordinated, but not all of us like that look. More peaceful? HAHA. I don't think so. Ever heard of a girl fight? Yeah. Those turn out worse than most locker room brawls. Smarter? ...We won't go there. I'm not even sure where I stand on that one. The point is most of the things I can think of get shot down. There is, however, one things I'm sure of: girls wouldn't care nearly so much about their appearance. In fact, we probably wouldn't care at all.
On the surface level, that sounds great, right? Well I disagree. Let's face it; we'd be pretty gross, ladies. A healthy degree of personal upkeep is how God intended for us to be- bathing, exercising, taking the time to dress up and look nice. Plus, we enjoy looking pretty, but even more than that, we enjoy looking pretty for boys. Seeing that look on their face when we open the door after working extra hard on our appearance. Hearing them say we look beautiful. We don't NEED those things, of course. We have our Heavenly Father's approval, and that's all that matters. But realistically, He made us to want to look beautiful, and guys complete that by appreciating our beauty. Besides that, guys bring a lot to the table that we would miss. Things like recklessness, brute strength, chivalry, and those surprisingly sensitive, insightful comments that make girls think twice about the things they thought they knew about guys.
So my verdict? My title becomes a misnomer. Guys can stay. I kinda like 'em, in all their rugged glory. Besides, we all know they could never survive without women. ;)

Aggravating Irrelevance

On Wednesday, August 13th, an article was published in the Macon Telegraph (our local newspaper for those unfamiliar) entitled, "Three FPD teachers returning to classroom after having children." The article, written by Julie Hubbard, a regular editor on the Macon Telegraph staff, discussed the thoughts and emotions of three women who were going back to teach at First Presbyterian Day School after having been stay at home moms for a number of years. It had been described to me by my journalism teacher as "a fluff article"- and it was. Consisting of one 2" by 4" picture and about 575 words, it could hardly be considered a headliner. Yet, when an online reader scrolls to the bottom of the page of the web-article, there can be counted 6 pages of comments, most consisting of hateful arguments between online subscribers. Why?
...Your guess is as good as mine.
As far as my observations take me, the article is not attempting to be subtly offensive or to take a jab at anyone. It does not conceal hidden racist comments, nor does it attempt to advocate private school supremacy. It simply is what it says it is, and it should be taken at face level: "Three FPD teachers returning to the classroom after having children."
Some of the complaints of the users are paraphrased in the following list:
"A private school takes the spotlight again! How annoying."
"This is just to try to make FPD look better than all of the other private schools!"
"Let's find a real story to put in the news- people go back to work all the time!"
"There's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom!"
Etc.
As if those were not enough, there was, of course, the other side of the spectrum: the comments that most likely initiated as harmless praise of the article but which turned out to be...well, offensive.
"Another great reason to keep your kids in private school! There's a big difference between walking into a private school and walking into a public school."
"If those criticizing had something like this going on in their crackhead neighborhoods, they wouldn't have turned out so stupid."
"I attended public schools- that's why my children go to private schools!"
Etc.
Personally- and I really did think over this- I am not sure what any of those things have to do with three women going back to school to teach. They love their family, and they love teaching. That is the entire gist of the article. Some of these people spent the better part of 5 hours dueling their polar viewpoints. If prejudice was the main concern, perhaps it would have been wiser to have taken one of those hours to learn a bit more about the article. Maybe then macon.com could have been saved from a few pages of hate-mail.
For example, Julie Hubbard has written more articles on public schools than any other subject, including, but not limited to, advertisements for the Bibb Co. back to school festival, positive expectations for Howard High School, and the work put into redistricting schools for the upcoming year. If that was insufficient, the photographer, Beau Cabell, has taken pictures of noteworthy students from every public and every private school. I even know for a fact that his daughter goes to public school; we both went to Howard, and he took pictures for our show-choir performances. From what I can gather from the situation, the problem at hand seems like a continuation of Macon's age-old source of tension: public vs. private schools.
In Macon, GA, the debate over which type of education is the best is a topic which is either deliberately avoided or vehemently argued. I see no benefit from starting up a new paragraph in this blog to perpetuate the argument- I don't have a good answer, nor do I think that a feasible one exists. I have been a part of both parties in question as a student at both public AND private schools; I have received cold and awkward glances from people no matter which school I go to. What I will say, however, is that this article was a victim of debates over a subject that it did not cover. The comment feature at the bottom of the page of an article about three housewives going to teach elementary school is not the place to start a debate over injustice and inequality, unless they were withholding crayons from their students or leaving their own children cold and hungry on the doorstep. It is also not appropriate to use such an article to advocate the school which it references; the article was not about the school itself. Only post those comments which you would be willing to post your name- your REAL name- with.
If a person would like to praise the subject or the style of writing, or even offer a word of constructive criticism about the matter which is being discussed, then (and only then) should that person click the "Post Your Comment" link and proceed to do so. Those types of comments are beneficial and even help add to an article. Otherwise, please take up irrelevant arguments in private.