REVENGE!!!

Today I fully experienced how revenge can come back and bite you in the boohonkus.  (BOO-hon-cuss.)

My brother broke his computer because it is ancient and he is destructive.  He cannot just go without getting on the computer because if he isn't on facebook for too long, they just might might file a missing person's report.  So lately, he has been using my computer...all the time. Okay, maybe not all the time, just when it is terribly inconvenient for me.  It wouldn't really be a problem, I can share. It's just that he runs the battery down to about five minutes and he never logs out of his facebook profile.  I can't tell you how many times I've opened up his page, thought it was my page,  and changed things accidentally.  I talked to him about it, but just like when I tell him to FLUSH the toilet, stop spitting sinus gunk in our sink and leaving it, or to stop leaving volleyball sand in the bottom of my bath tub; it went in one ear and our the other. The last time he did it, I decided it WOULD be the last time he'd do it.  I was going to teach him a lesson.

For those of you not familiar with facebook, you can change your status to say what you feel or what you are doing.  The last time he left his page up, I decided since I could access his facebook and he didn't know my password, that I would purposely change his status for him.  I decided  on the simple, yet potentially embarassing, "ERIC likes boys."  I figured since it was about 8 am and Eric doesn't usually grace us with his presence until about 2 pm, that he would just have this unfortunate status for all his friends to see.  When I got home from work, we would all laugh about it, or so I thought.  It would have worked perfectly accept one little thing... he knew what my password was.

When I got home from work,  Ty filled me in on what had happened.  Eric had decided to give me a taste of my own medicine and got me back ten fold.  He, too, had accessed my page and changed some things.  My profile picture was now homicidal dictator Joseph Stalin.  My status said that I was vastly inferior to my brother.  My profile said that I was an anarchist, a man, and interested in both men and women.  Finally, any other place that he could fit in "my brother is awesome" or "my brother is smarter than me," he did, much to the pleasure of his already inflated ego.  If all this wasn't bad enough, there was a storm yesterday, and my Internet was down for the whole time until about thirty minutes ago, so I couldn't go on and change anything.  

So even though I thought it was hilarious and there wasn't any permanent damage done, I guess there is a moral to this story.  Although revenge is sweet and can be a lot of fun, it will come back and bite you, and it will feel worse the second time; especially if your brother is a low down dirty lawyer. 

How old are you?

Last semester I came across a really interesting quote from my Human Growth and Development class that made me think.  It was from a man who was from in a third-world county and who was born with out a birth certificate, thus having no idea when his exact birthday was.  This is the quote "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"

I say that to say this.  Check out my new Gene Kelly and Rat Pack videos and tell me if you think I am REALLY 18 years old, or maybe closer to 68.

How old would you be?

It's My Potty, I'll Cry if I Want To

Okay, since Pastor Rick obviously has no other form of entertainmnet than to read my blog,  I suppose I should write another one.  The thing is, I can think of nothing extremely profound or interesting to blog about so this is what you get.  It's an essay I wrote senior year and I apologize in advance.  You asked for it!!! :)

It's My Potty and I'll Cry if I Want To

As I starred onto the horizon of the open road, I wondered what the day had in store for me.  Surrounded by sixty of my closest marching band friends, I was thinking of my destination: San Antonio, Texas.  I was looking forward to the Alamo and six flags, but also the warm weather that didn't exist in my hometown that month.  Little did I know that my day was doomed to begin with a slightly tragic rest stop situation.  After driving for a while, we planned to stop at a truck stop.  My mission was simple; to use the rest room and buy a soda.  It was important for me to " empty and refuel" myself in order to be fully prepared to face my long day of fun.  "Let's make this quick" I thought to myself.  I was far too anxious to dilly-dally.

When the bus came to a complete stop, I happily hopped up and jumped to the front.  The first thing I notices when my foot hit the pavement was the weather.  Even though we were in Southern Texas in the middle of the spring, for some reason the Nashville weather has followed us there.  It was forty degrees accompanied with a harsh wind.  I was totally shocked. !  I had packed for much warmer weather and I had foolishly packed no jacket and all I could do was hope that it warmed up.  Mildly disappointed, I sucked it up and began to walk toward the bathrooms.

The walk was a seemingly lengthy one and by the time I reached my designation, everyone else had run ahead of me to secure themselves a spot in line.  Once I got inside the bathroom, I saw that there were only three stalls to be shared by about thirty girls, most of which were ahead of me.  "Great, this is going to take much longer than I thought," I said to myself, but little did I know this would be the least of my worries.  As I walked further into the building I found out that half of it was missing a major architectural element; a roof.  The tops of the three stalls were completely open allowing the cold and biting wind to blow and bite where ever it so pleased.  This was indeed unsettling.  "I'm already freezing fully clothed! I'm in no way prepared to face the wind pantless!"  I said to the confused chaperon standing next to me.  As I got closer to stalls, I discovered yet another disturbing fact.  The toilets were made out of metal.

Do I REALLY have to go?  What if someone get struck by lightning while they were sitting there?  Who manufactures metal toilets HONESTLY?!?!?!?  These questions swarmed my head while I tried to keep my mind off the latest gust of wind.  I really did have to go, but I didn't know what to do until it hit me.  All I had to do was hover.

It was then my turn to walk in.  Suddenly I noticed that my only hope for some small slice of comfort was shattered.  The toilets were too high for me to hover making it impossible for me to hover.  Extremely peeved, I did all I could do--I bit my lip and sat.  After the initial shock subsided, I made a conscious decision not to touch anything so I wouldn't have to wash my hand in the water I was sure would be cold.  I had a bottle of Germ-ex that I kept on the bus and all i had to do was make it there.  I exited the stall using only my feet (quite acrobatically) to flush and open the door.  I was feeling highly annoyed and somewhat numb.

As I left, I examined the sinks.  I noticed an absence of paper towels and, just as I thought, there was no warm water settings. My fingers were already cold enough, so I attempted to walk out nonchalantly.  "This place is kind of crowded.  No one will notice if I don't wash my hands just this once,"  or so I thought.

I was halfway in the clear when I heard my little friend Heather scream " Hey aren't you gonna wash your hands?" in which case the whole entire line turned to look at me and I had no choice but to comply to her overly observant wishes.

I ran my hands under the predictably freezing water and said half-way jokingly, "Heather, if those blow dryers don't work, I'm going to kill you."  These famous last words proved to be prophetic, for both the dryers that were provided, weren't working.  I decided then that Heather must die.

I finally escaped before I could do any major damage to Heather's tiny body, and went out for my final attempt to cheer myself up...I had to find a soda.  AS luck would have it, none of the dozen or so machines were on.  Holding back the urge to scream loudly or make out a hit list with only Heather's name on it, I simply gave up and started my long walk back to the bus.  Sadly, I returned cold, wet, frostbitten, sodaless and ultimately defeated.

Gather ye Rosebuds

Tonight after I finished my homework I decided to settle down, allow myself to take a break from thinking and other academic stuff, and watch a movie with my wonderful boyfriend, Ty.  Unfortunately, being the literary nerd that I am, I couldn't help but to be drawn to the literary allusions that were present in the movie (its my fault for renting a movie about an English teacher.)

The underlying theme of the movie was the philosophy of "carpe diem".  This is a Latin term that simply means "seize the day."  In the film, this philosophy challenged many young men at a boarding school to step out of their comfort zones and do something different with their lives; to embrace the principle that if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.  They were inspired by this philosophy to be moved to change, to become better versions of themselves.  I think this principle is both overlooked and imperative in our Christian walk.

It is so easy to put off tell people about Christ until tomorrow.  Tomorrow i will be more prepared, tomorrow i won't be so tired, tomorrow i will have the courage, and the best thing about tomorrow... it's not today!!!  But if we keep putting off what we know we have to do, we may never have the chance to do it.  I should know, I am just as guilty.  

See, I used to pray, "God, give me the opportunity to witness today," and every once in a while I would be given one.  But one day while praying at War On the Floor, God spoke to me and said "why are you waiting for an opportunity?  Make one goober!"  I am unsure if god really called me a goober, but the point was clear; I know what I have to do, I know I haven't been doing it to the best of my abilities, and all I have to do is step out of my comfort zone and seize the day.

I would like to end with an excerpt from a very famous poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674):

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-marrow will be dying.

So anywho, let now be the time that you call that person you have been thinking about and invite them to your church the next time the doors our open.  Gather ye rosebuds, and seize the day, friends!

Peace,

Sister Mauldin

Saturday in the Park

Okay here goes nothing.

As I embark on my first attempt at creating a "blog" as you crazy youngsters call it, I must take time to make my audience wary of the fact that I am not only awful at spelling, but even worse at catching any mistakes that spell check passes up.  So I aplogize in advance.  No really, sometimes I spell so bad that spell check doesn't even catch it, so if all else fails, sound it out!!

I have no idea what I am supposed to write about so I'll go off of what pastor Rick's blog said.  Yesterday started out fantastic.   Our youth group had planned a day at the park where we all got together to have fun and bond.  I awoke to a beautiful day, sun shinning, not a cloud in the sky.  I was so excited to have left winter behind as I prepared for a day out in the sun.   For four long summer months, I had been hoping that global warming would finally kick in and I would get some weather that would at least burn me or something, so I was a little disappointed when it my sunny sky turned out to be accompanied by THIRTY FOUR DEGREE WEATHER!!!! Oh well, minor set back, nothing that a little bit of running around can't fix.

After showing my wicked awesome football skills while warming up, we finally decided to play an organized game.  You could tell that both team captians really wanted me on their team because, you know, I'm amazing.  But being the generous guys they were, they didn't pick me till like seventh because they wanted everyone else to feel like they were good too.  Who can blame them? I'm a beast.

I decided not to steal everyone's thunder, because the day wasn't about me.  So I allowed this old guy on our team be the "coach" and after scoring a Heisman-worthy touchdown which propelled my team to the inevitable greatness that the had for acquiring  a player like me, I decided that my duties were accomplished and I could let other people play.  I mean, they all did well, but no one could touch my athletic skills.  I even fumbled a ball so no one would be jelous of my obvious talent!  

Anywho, I said that to say this.  There is a famous quote that says "You can learn more about a man in one hour of play than you can in one hundred hours of conversation."  I think that holds true to many situations.  Sometimes we get to know each other better when we let loose a little, set aside differences, forget formalities (like forgetting that the old man is your Pastor) and have fun together as people, as a body.  I think it's important to have that balance of serious and not-so-serious, and to have a day to spend with old friends and meeting new ones.

Peace,

Sister Mauldin