mustard seed

turns out i may have been wrong. i was just playing Free Rice and realized that one of the words i got right ("cotillion"), i would never have known were it not for The OC. no hypotheses, just added evidence.

it is true. TV rots your brain. i have been watching it. and i have nothing to say. nothing. to. say. anyone who ever told you this is right, right, right. the case study proves it. when i am done watching the entire OC series i will write one big blog post about a) why i shouldn't have and b) why you shouldn't either and c) why saying all this justifies the fact that i did (even if it doesn't)

so i know i didn't post the link to the earlier-mentioned David Foster Wallace Kenyon College Commencement speech, and i still won't, because i kind of feel like it might be illegal since it's a book now (and you really can't find too many links for it since they have all been removed due to the book's publication). i'm just posting about it again to reiterate that you should read it . and if that means coming to my house, sitting on our purple couch and reading our copy of it, then do that . my dad bought it the other day and everyone here has read it twice through so far at least. i'm on summer mode! this is a new sort of summer mode, since i'm not doing any sports (no 6am swim team, no afternoon soccer, no running, no workout.... this will start to be bad in a few days). this new sort of summer mode entails never leaving my bed. until someone shows up at my door because i get so excited to see people that i leap out of bed to greet them. so come over...

i go to a Bible college. let's just get that out there. hopefully that doesn't add any negative connotations to your view of my posts / me; if it does, hopefully you can fight them off since connotation does not necessarily equate with reality (let's be poetic and call reality "concrete denotation"). i go to a really good Bible college where i'm learning more than i could have ever have hoped to learn about anything. i came here prideful and worried that i would spend 75% of my time rolling my eyes at everything, but instead i have been humbled and stood in awe of all that goes on here actively and academically. nonetheless, i'm going to use a complaint about this same Bible college as an introduction to this post. the problem with going to a Bible college is that a good number of the students here are missionary or homeschool kids who have read the Bible back and forth like 89 times and have competed in Bible-verse-memorizing contests at high, high level...

i'm supposed to be doing homework, but i have no motivation. or had no motivation, until, in my procrastinating, i stumbled across Bill Watterson's Kenyon College commencement speech , which i think is really good. there are some things that life, work, and play have in common, and if we can find those things and do them, we've found a good path. (Dorothy Sayers touches on this - actually, Dorothy Sayers annihilates this subject - in her essay "Why Work?" which you should hunt down and read as well). David Foster Wallace also gave a commencement speech at Kenyon in 2005, you can find it online or, if you want to spend money, they turned it into a cute little book with goldfish on it (which of course catches my attention). if you read this blog and you don't go take a few minutes to read both of those as a result, you're missing out. this is sort of a threat, sort of a guilt trip, and sort of hoping you will read and enjoy both :) if you don't read th...

honestly? after movies like I, Robot and Eagle Eye , i can't see why anyone would even think about pursuing the whole "let's try to make a machine act like a person" thing. i'm pretty sure all this does is teach people to rely less on their own actions and responsibilities. i know the thinking is "well if we can get a robot to do these things, then we can think about bigger and better things and it's actually better for everyone!!!" it's actually not. a lot of why i think this has to do with outsourcing. getting robots to do things for us just reduces the need for human jobs. people will say things like, "well, you just get someone to run the robot or technology etc." problems with that: 1. it makes the person who is running the thing actually lazier (i.e. toll booth people. all they have to do is like, push a button and take your money), which contributes both to an obesity epidemic as well as intellectual scarcity. when all someone h...

(excuse the low-quality images; everything looks cooler in real life) (this same reason should be used to actually go hiking, however cool someone can make a landscape look through photoshop) comic relief series (these are cooler in person because they are fun to touch) he lives in you (lion king + spiritual element + paper play) these are terrible photos. all the more reason to come hang out in real life. have a wonderful saturday. i will. i'm going on two nights of eight-hour sleep! (this is unheard of, you realize, in the world of an undergrad sophomore) and i am done with my big paper. i'm not going to post it here; it's like twenty pages. places to pray for today: france, japan, santa barbara.

the reason that i don't capitalize a lot of my letters in informal writing is: a) not because i'm a little grammar rebel b) not because i'm lazy c) not because i'm incompetent (okay you have to laugh with me for a second, at first i spelled incompetent wrong, i went back and corrected it, but still felt like i should tell you, because the irony's killing me, and simultaneously giving me an identity crisis - am i incomptenetnt?) d) not because i don't know but actually e) because i am only like five feet talk and i have a great respect for the little guys (i.e. hamsters, corgis, baby frogs, etc). don't get me wrong, there's a place for elephants and giraffes and stuff (and by this metaphor i mean CAPITAL LETTERS) but it's not in my informal writing. hopefully one day an employer reads my resume and they see "melissa gutierrez" instead of "Melissa Gutierrez" they will think, "oh, she must be on the cute and short side l...

take me not-so-seriously for one second here, and then, go read the previous post and take me really seriously (to do this is not so incongruent as you might think: F. Scott Fitzgerald says, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." let us go off the assumption that you, dear blog reader, are intelligent, so that you may enjoy these two blog posts each in their full). yesterday, i did a public "oops" at the Angels/Tigers game, and got my leg clamped in one of these chairs. i suffered two wounds, one to my right calf, and one to my dignity, but, thanks to my well-designed anatomy and the ability to locate my identity in Christ (both instances of grace, mind you), i am making a full recovery.

this is a spur-of-the-moment-rant (as Chris Munekawa would say, a "brain dump"). it's the sort of thing that makes me wish that everyone in the world read my blog so that they would know what i think about this. and honestly, it's not so much that i want them to know what i think, but also that i want them to change how they live because of what i think. and this is exactly the problem i want to rant about. i just spent time, too much time, browsing online/print journals and publications, looking at all the voices and all the writings and all the arts and all the media and all the PR and all the marketing that goes into these things. and it's a little conflicting because on one hand, these are the sort of people i can relate to one hundred percent (100%). i am the "inwardly-passionate-writer-type"; i can't help but browse, in addition to the publication part of these groups, their job listings because i dream of being part of one of them one day. it...

*note: i didn't realize how personal and lengthy this was going to be, but it ended up that way anyways. sorry / forewarning for all the reasons i can't relate to Britney Spears (pop-stardom, losing virginity at sixteen, getting drunkenly married in Vegas, having two kids, going through a financially nasty divorce, pretty much having a monopoly over tabloid cover space, shaving my head, etc), she does have this one song that i really resonate with: "i'm not a girl, not yet a woman." i'm inclined to say i'm joking or being sarcastic or cynical, because i don't want to align with Britney Spears about something i'm trying to make a serious connection with. the point is, it's unfortunate i have to quote Britney Spears for those lines instead of someone great and timeless like Virgil. the other point is, i have to quote those lines. i'm in my second year of an undergrad education; i'm going to turn twenty here in a month or so. i know i lega...

one of my favorite passages in the new testament (i know, i know, i run the risk of saying that about everything i pull from the new testament. hopefully that says something about the new testament and not about me. ideally it says something about the new testament and about me): Luke 12:33-34 "Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be ." now, as much as i love these verses, i also love my nifty daily Bible (thanks, Becky Tirabassi). i will complain that it is difficult to transport (i won't take this bugger around with me to read it in between classes or anything, because it's like, five times the size of my itty-bitty ESV i am partial to), but that might actually be to it's benefit, because i have to be de...

hello everyone. there is some small probability, as with everyone's life, that i will not make it through to see another day. the probability of this has increased for me personally since i have contracted an illness where i hurt everywhere and my retinas burn. i may die. in attempts to help lessen this probability and keep from dying, i spent all day sleeping/doing nothing. now, this is the sort of day that would typically allow me to finish up things like, say, these three blog post drafts i have been meaning to finish up. however, since everything on me hurts so bloody bad, i have had not the physical nor mental means to do so. in the event of my death, you should know that you missed out on: 1. a sweet investigation of how the aristotelian mean can be used to resolve the science/religion debate 2. how old testament laws protect both personal health and environmental biology (and why it is so important that the two are so linked) 3. my copious thoughts on using twitter and techn...

because i am genuinely curious. here is what you can do: 1. read the Thomas Merton quotes posted within one of my professor's posts at Scriptorium Daily i wonder if i am the man Merton is talking about. how can a man be truly humble? can a man be truly humble? how do you maintain humility? does one have to deliberately put themselves into undesirable circumstances in order to maintain humility? can a man live an enjoyable, pleasurable life on earth and still be humble? what does true humility look like, at this interior level? how does one keep from thinking they understand the will of God in their lives? how do you know when something is the will of God and when it's just your own "feeling" or your own decision? what do you think? oh God, forgive me for and forbid me from thinking that my own desires are yours. and at the same time - make my desires yours. can a man truly have your desires, God? how do we know? guide us as we follow You, most holy and great Author of...

today i solved one of my life's most haunting mysteries. when we first moved into this house (1997), we found, in the closet that now holds all my clothes, the creepiest looking bug i've ever seen. i freaked out, we killed it, never again did we see any other of it's type. since that day, the fear and uncomfortability i face my own home due to this horrible insect (particularly while putting on shoes that have been in closets) has immensely restricted my happiness and security. how did i know it wasn't an alien being? i'd never seen one before, and i'd never seen one since. it could have had all sorts of venom and intergalactic poison in it's fangs (if it had fangs). all kinds of bad. that awful little bug, just lurking in the crevices of my own home, the most evil that could fit in two inches of insect. just horrible. i recently saw someone's picture of the same critter, and they had called it a "potato bug." i googled it. and sure enough, tha...

the further i get in this always-going "search for truth," recently, the more i run into Marxist ideas. where is the connection? do. research. later. (sources: The Mystery of Capital; The Phantom Tollbooth) (thought options: ideal/possibly real economics, fairytales a la Dr. Reynolds/Velveteen Rabbit, biblical literalness)

it will always be better to be the nicest, most genuinely caring person than one who spends their time getting and giving and dealing with more things to know and think about. oh God. take care of us.

forewarning: this is going to be very long. it has to be, for me, for continuity’s sake. and so i apologize for your eyeballs glazing over and your vision getting messed up from staring at a screen for so long. but you know what? all you have to do is close the window and walk away, and suddenly, i’m not accountable anymore. this is not a free will discussion. never mind. there has been a lot going on in my life. in particular, i have my most important and only term paper due in just over a week, and it is hanging over my head like… well like the sky except made of molten lead. what i really should be spending my time on is this paper, but since i am enrolled in an institution that epitomizes whole-soul education, i feel somewhat okay with putting that paper on hold until i get this post written. especially because the aim of this post is to tie together all these masses of things i have been hanging on to (“things that i have been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually curious about a...