Facelift July 30, 2008
The Latest 1 comment by Luca.The Family International site is looking pretty fanshmastical these days. It’s looking so good that I felt led to give it some link love. Go web guys!
What I can say? I like the way you’re put together. July 23, 2008
The Latest 5 comments by Julie(smith), Chuck, Niki, Lily, and Marky.I came here tonight to break the story that Marky is blogging now and had every intention of walking away into the sunset immediately afterwards. But then I started thinking of how much I like Marky, and then I decided that I would like to take some time to say nice things about him because, well, I like him a lot.
When Marky first came to the area I tried to befriend him for selfish reasons, mostly to be cool by association. But I quickly realized that I couldn’t help but like Marky just for being Marky. (Wow, I’ve said Marky five - no - six times already.)
He loves Anchorman, which is kind of a rite of passage for me.
He’s the only guy in the area that lets me call him Stinky. This means more to me than I can properly express.
He bails me out when I run into trouble with the schedule, and that happens about three times a week, on average.
I love him as much as I love Dan, but Marky accepts my love more and I like that about him.
There, I’ve said enough. But I love you Stinky, I really do.
I’m sorry July 17, 2008
The Latest 3 comments by Dan and Steve.I like how Angel will just tell you the hard truth about yourself. To all those who are so brilliant that it’s scary, I’m sorry.
We were discussing a certain social situation that I was thrust into:
TallGoddess says:
and I’m going to look like a total idiot around them
TallGoddess says:
and
TallGoddess says:
I’m scared
Angel says:
don’t be scared
Angel says:
if you get scared then you get quiet
TallGoddess says:
I know
Angel says:
and when you are quiet you seem very creepy
Interview of the month July 12, 2008
Interview of the Month 11 comments by Susan, Joan, Florence, Florecita, Crystal, Clare, and Woozers.Angel tagged me and I was all “Awesome, I never get tagged” and I was set to answer and then my spirit helpers were all “Wait a minute, Jules - you’re going to spend all this time answering questions when you haven’t produced one Interview of the Month in over two months?” (I answered the most interesting questions on that tagged thingie and sent them to Angel so she feels my love for her) So here’s what’s up: I’m gonna be honest and say that I feel a little burned that my last interview went unanswered but they say that a just man falls seven times….or something, and the general feeling I get off of that is that I should push past this pain and forge ahead.
I was totally blank about who to interview and so I asked around and someone said “Florence“. Shazzam! Florence kinda creeps me out with how smart she is. I reserve visiting her blog to about once a month because there’s only so many comparing trials a person can handle. If she answers, world, prepared to be wowed! (Heh. No pressure there, Florence.) Guidelines here.
So, what do you do? Give us a typical “day in the life of”:
Oooh. This is a diffy queschy. I have so many different types of days. A typical month would probably consist of going to the HCS (a good 2 hours away from my house) for a few days a few times for a few shows with the Kando Bando and a little bit of love time with my sweet brother Steve; quite a few days in the Activate Office trying to be a hardcore secretary in a tiny little room that gets very hot in the summertime; and whatever days are left are invested in the chaotic pursuit of the professional missionary lifestyle, a.k.a. putting in the PMA hours. Besides this, I am a striving Home Manager, a delinquent FED criteria monitor, and a forgetful CGO criteria monitor. I live in a very small service Home, and I hope that every day teaches me a little more about what real service is.
If you really wanted to get intimate with my day, I could tell you that I start reading Word at 7:30 in the morning, and try to have the schedule made and breakfast eaten and Word all tucked inside my heart by 9:15. I often give the OCs and JR teens Word time in Japanese (a miracle of God), and I do a little cleaning, and then I jump (or crawl, sometimes) into the Office and work and work and am very happy to work until lunch, after which time I try to manage to exercise and send off sheep mails (I’ve begun to fascinate myself with the miracle of sending 12FS courses via e-mail–one of God’s little excitements). I work again in the afternoon and my day pretty much goes down like so.
Not so bad, two whole paragraphs and we’ve only just finished answering the first question!
If you could be stuck in an elevator for an hour with anyone who has ever lived on earth, who would it be and what would you talk about?
Julia Kelly. We would talk about her uncle and his wife and how much we love the great job that they do leading us chickens into the future. We may also get around to talking about her distant relative Gene, who was my first on-screen crush, and whose loyal fan I remain.
I’m assuming you’ve lived in Japan your whole life. Do you see yourself there for years and years to come? And also, when you witness, what do you do to get past the whole politeness, save face, OMG-she’s-a-foreigner thing that I’ve heard is very prevelent over there? How do you get deep with people?
I have lived here my whole life, and I do see myself here for years and years to come, yes. In fact, it’s difficult to see myself anywhere else. As old-bottlish as that may sound, I haven’t always felt that way, and I believe it’s one of the Lord’s little gifts to the missionaries who he has called to be in a certain place for a while—the little gift of actually loving the people and the place and feeling unable to imagine leaving. I’ve always had one of those natural burdens to be in the place where I am needed, and as long as I am needed in Japan and as long as there is the potential for immense amounts of fruit, I know I’ll be happiest serving the Lord here. That’s not to say that I’ve never wanted to see what other countries are like, or take a little hike across an English-speaking country (just to shock myself). Maybe one day.
I’m not sure what you mean by a “whole politeness, save face, OMG-she’s-a-foreigner thing” that would be an obstacle to getting deep with people. But I’ve never found being a foreigner to be a detriment. In fact, it’s always wonderful to not have to be so afraid of breaking their traditions and crossing some little cultural bounds, because people forgive the foreigners more readily (at least once or twice). Lots of people have wanted to be my friend or meet me again partly on the grounds of learning English, or because Japanese have a strange idea that being friends with foreigners is cool. So I’m very happy for it, PTL. I get deep with people the same way anyone would get deep with people, I guess, and the Lord is always faithful to lead me into the opportunities to witness.
What have your top three happiest, awesomest moments been in the last three years?
Oh my God. You really have a gift for these enormous all-encompassing questions. I have to think for a few hours to punch out a few sentences in answer to this question. In no particular order:
–My first day of being provisionally FD feeling like I made the biggest leap ever.
–The moment that spanned three days of recording the Strawberry Jam.
–Other climactic moments that one must not divulge in too much detail, in too much public.
Think of the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. If you were given the chance, would you go back in time to correct it, then relive your life from that point until now?
I can think of a pretty few huge mistakes that I’ve made. But the hugest mistakes I think are difficult to pin down to a single instant. If I realized after an instant that I’d made a huge mistake, and tried to apologize for it or make it right, about 90 percent of the mistake probably would’ve been circumvented. I think it’s the time that I spend believing I’m right, holding on to my pride, slowly realizing I made a mistake and hoping that the guilt will just go away without me facing it, and hurting other people over and over because I’m too slow to admit that it was a mistake and it snowballed past the point of no return, that is the 90 percent that makes mistakes so huge. So when I think about all the time that I spent thinking about the mistake that I made and wishing I hadn’t made it, I know that while my grip on my pride was slipping, I was learning a whole lot. And so no, I wouldn’t trade those mistakes in for the world. It’s funny cause, even while we’re thinking about the mistakes that hurt people, those are the mistakes that taught me the most, because they make me the most serious about how stupid I am. Even though I wish I could go back and change everything, or apologize to everyone, in most cases it made them stronger, and in some cases it helped us to let go of each other when it was time to let go. So I think those mistakes are all good and Jesus knows that they needed to be made.
What do you do to keep the fame from going to your famous brother Steve’s head? Or do you leave that to the Lord?
Ha. I like this question.
As much as Steve is going to hate this answer, I will just lay it down nice and clean and shiny, and I hope no one slips on the soap. Steve has always been, to me, one of the shiniest examples of humanity—pretty much as humble as a human can be without getting proud about it. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up with the squirt that made me this way, but I am very used to having an idea of men based on Steve’s personality, and I’m only just beginning to find that most men fall regrettably short. (This is terrible, and if only for this reason, I wish Steve was more of a sleazeball.) Basically, he is probably one of the people that I have the easiest time talking to, working with, and hanging out with. We both really respect each other as friends, and it blows my mind all the time how much he believes in me. So even though this question was only about keeping the fame from going to my famous brother’s head, I answered with a big heaping tub of love. I will though, as a little P.S., add that I think it’s a miracle that he’s as humble as he is, and the Lord’s definitely done a great deal more to that end than I have.
What’s the last thing the Lord told you to do?
To not feel bad about scheduling rest times and nap times because those are very necessary for my health and happiness.
Why do you suspect the Devil is from France?
Because Metanoya has been to Hell (you moron), so it must be closeby.
(Really though, you’d be surprised at how many people didn’t get the point about the cooked frog legs being a French delicacy. I guess people just thought we were trying to diss France. As far as I know, none of us have anything against France. In fact, Masa or Steve was supposed to say “Let’s dance” after that line before going into the chorus. But they forgot or something, so they left it sort of empty and hanging. I have to say, there has been many a time when I felt a little stupid after hearing that line. Lord help us.)
Big news July 2, 2008
The Latest 19 comments by Chuck, Lily, Christy, Luca, Michael V, Promise, Shalimar Kelly, Lisa, Jamie, and Shalimar Kelly.Well, it’s news for anyone not in the greater California/Baja area.
After returning from Nepal, I decided that it’s just too cool of a country to not live in. So I decided to live there. Probably making the move in September.
I’m pretty excited.