Wacky 13th - About me

Stolen (and edited down) from a friend's Facebook note:


Name → Julie Bihn

Nickname(s) → Jules; JR

Status → Single (happily)

Zodiac sign → Bah. (On the cusp)

Male or female → Female

Height → I think 5'6

Hair color → Brown

Long or Short → A bit past shoulder length (I got it cut way too short!)

Loud or Quiet → I'm usually considered quiet, but I can be a chatterbox too.

Sweats or Jeans → Cargo pants (I visit you from 2001!)

Phone or Camera → What does this mean? You kind of have to have your phone but my camera phone is hilarious--it takes tiny photos and when you zoom in, it just CROPS them. I take my camera when I'm going somewhere interesting.

Health freak → Chocolate is a fruit, right?

Drink or Smoke? → I have never had more than one drink at a sitting (not been remotely drunk), and never smoked.

Do you have a crush on someone? → Are we in grade school? No.

Piercings? → 0

What did you do last night→ I'm actually writing this on January 6, 2011 :#/ so who knows? (TIME TRAVEL!) Odds are, stayed up too late, probably wandering down Internet rabbit holes.


CURRENTLY:

Eating → No

Drinking → No, but I'm about to get up and have some water

I'm about to → Do laundry!

Listening to → "The Office" ("Let's get ethical, ethical...")

Plans for tomorrow → Going to work


HAVE YOU EVER:

Run away from home → No, but when I was a kid and we came home after a vacation and found our house burgled, I took my bike, I think it was, and rode to the edge of our 10-acre property. Yes, when I am frightened, I run like a rabbit.

Broken someone's heart → Highly doubtful (if so, I'm sorry!)

Been arrested → No


DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

Yourself → Kind of

Love at first sight → Sure?

Heaven → Yes

Santa Claus → My brother did discover that Santa has the same handwriting as Dad...

God → Yes

Why Write?

Progress report - I'm still getting a chapter of Endwood up for critique weekly, so that's good. I think I'm about 3 chapters from the end. I'm really excited to put this novel behind me for a while! Also returned a couple critiques in the past 7 days.

My question today is: Why write? God gave me a passion for writing, I believe, as I've been interested since I was a small child. I drew comic books and wrote stories when I was about 11 or 12, and have been writing ever since. If you count NaNoWriMo, I've completed drafts of about 5 novels, plus a co-written novel and one that I stopped at 50,000 words after NaNo but will rewrite someday. At any rate, I adore entertaining people with imagined characters and worlds. For someone who can't memorize, writing is a great way to do it.

OK, so why write novels? I just haven't gotten the hang of writing short stories--I like to have more time to play with characters. And in a perfect world, I know every novel would be as polished as a short story, but in the real world, every word has to count in a short story, whereas novels have a bit more wiggle room. I'd like to try it sometime, though.

I actually love writing comic books, but I'm not a very good artist and don't enjoy drawing enough to become a much better artist. I've toyed with having artists draw my scripts, but that kind of collaboration can be difficult to pull off, in that both parties must be very motivated. I've heard that it usually comes down to the artist "encouraging" the artist to work, and I'm not so good at that.

I wrote a script for a play once (I took a playwriting class in college instead of advanced fiction writing...more on that another day!), and it was enjoyable. But I feel like doing a play would be so draining for someone who loves ideas but can have trouble interacting with people for long, long stretches.

I think it'd be kind of cool to write for TV, but I'm not sure I'd want to write other people's characters, and I know I don't want to move to LA.

I know if you write a movie screenplay and Hollywood makes it, odds are VERY poor that your vision will end up on the screen. I think that would be hard to deal with, no matter how excellent the money can be.

And I prefer imagined worlds to the real ones, so that's why I prefer to write fiction. Did I leave out any possibilities you can think of?

But when it comes down to it, I love to write, and it's just something I do. Even in the lunchroom at work, I prefer to just sit down with a pencil and paper and work on my novel. It's one of the things I enjoy most in the world, and I believe God likes me to do it.

Do you write? If so, why? If not, why not?

Next Wednesday I'll continue this thread with, why write for publication?

Media/Music Monday - A Rotterdam November - Love Is...

So I am attending RAGE Music Festival 2011--anyone with me? And I figured what better way to prepare than to review an album from one of the bands that will be there?

From their MySpace:

The name “A Rotterdam November” is the brainchild of Jared Nelson and contains a metaphorical meaning describing the mission and heart of the band. The city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands was bombed during WWII and the main part of the city was completely destroyed. At that time, a Russian/French sculptor saw the wasteland and dubbed it “the city without a heart.” However, the spirit of Rotterdam was determined to “…go on, eyes firmly fixed on the present and the future, and not to linger in the past.” As a result, architects were presented with the opportunity to reconstruct the heart of Rotterdam from scratch and so they did. As it stands today, Rotterdam is an old city with a new heart. This is the analogy for Christians; the enemy’s goal is to destroy mankind and he has been partly successful through Adam’s original sin. However, that is not the end of the story, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, mankind has the opportunity to be reconstructed with a brand new heart. Spreading this message through music, whether directly or indirectly, is the goal and desire of the band A Rotterdam November.

A Rotterdam November has two albums out. The quote above pretty much refers to their first, self-titled effort, which has a lot of brilliant war references, including a song called 1914 about the 1914 Christmas Truce during World War I. Perhaps their most popular song from that album was "Trainwreck," which may be my favorite love song, given its emphasis on "I can't be perfect." (It starts out, "I can't ever promise I won't let you down...I won't give my word you won't get hurt.") My favorite is still "City Without a Heart," which is just ridiculously catchy.

So, like many Christian (and probably other independent) bands, A Rotterdam November, or "ARN," lost a couple members between their first album and their second. I was rather concerned that one of these losses included the aforementioned Jared Nelson, who, if I recall correctly, was credited with most of my favorite lyrics. So when I found out that they had a new album coming out, I was a bit concerned that it might be weaker lyrically.

So, how is "Love Is..."?

The album seems to focus rather more on love and broken-hearted relationship songs, which is probably a smart move, given the popularity of "Trainwreck." Honestly, since I'm not terribly interested in having a relationship (!), those kind of songs don't always appeal so much to me, although several of these are for girls who are afraid to love...hm.

The melodies are fairly catchy, though there are no songs that make me want to drop everything and sing along like "City Without a Heart" on the first album. Lyrically, it took a while for anything to actually catch my ear the first time through (aside from the fact that "Anemone" rhymes "Sometimes I wish I'd met you long before" with "A flower where the world only sees a w...", which is the first time I think I'd heard that particular word on a Christian album!).

Then I stumbled across "Problematic," which says, "A bird isn't free when it's in flight/It's chained, chained, chained by the distance it creates." That's when my ears perked up and I realized that yes, there are some good lyrics here. Good thing, because some great lyrics, and melodies, follow. "Letter" is a song sweet enough to make most girls' hearts melt, I reckon. I fell in love with "We Still Believe" on the first listen was. It's an acoustic song that is about as far from "City Without a Heart" as you can get, but it's pretty and the lyrics are explicitly Christian, which is something you don't get on a surprising number of Christian rock albums.

In fact, there are even direct Biblical references (albeit most of them would go over the heads of non-believers). I found an explanation of the lyrics of "Love Is..." through Google (couldn't access it from their main site): http://www.arotterdamnovember.com/go/lyrics?id=541266 It references Psalm 56:8-9 (I semi-arbitrarily cited NASB):

You have taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle
Are they not in Your book?
Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;
This I know, that God is for me.

So lyrically, this album seems to have more direct Bible references than the previous one, but fewer historical references, and perhaps not quite as picky about grammar (the previous one actually uses the subjunctive and asks "If I were drowning...").

At any rate, I'd say "Love Is..." holds up pretty well lyrically and musically--not quite as intense as the first album, but quite good nonetheless. If "Trainwreck" is your favorite ARN song, then "Love Is..." is probably going to be a great album for you. Even if it's not your favorite, it's worth having.

(Psssst, now you can get up to 12 songs from High Flight Society for $5! Pledge $5 (the money will only leave your credit card if they reach their funding goal) and once they've completed it, they'll send you their 6-song EP. And you can get their previous EP--that's 6 free songs--here!)



FTC disclosure: I received "Love Is..." as a "donation gift" for supporting Effect Radio. I figure that I basically paid $15 (at the time) for it, but you could also consider it a "free" CD if you wanted.

Sunday Bonus - What is "Meek"?

Yesterday's question got me wondering if the definition of "meek" has really changed so much over the years. I'm not a huge fan of Webster's 1828 dictionary, per se, but a lot of Evangelicals love it. Personally, I need to get a good concordance, and/or find a trustworthy one on the Internet. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad/disturbing/worrisome Bible commentary on the Internet, even though there is also some excellent commentary. So I usually don't attempt searches on things subject to so much interpretation, like the definition of "meek."

But from the dictionary definitions

1828 Webster's:

MEEK, a. [L. mucus; Eng. mucilage; Heb. to melt.]

1. Mild of temper; soft; gentle; not easily provoked or irritated; yielding; given to forbearance under injuries.

Now the man Moses was very meek, above all men. Num.12.

2. Appropriately,(sic?) humble, in an evangelical sense; submissive to the divine will; not proud, self-sufficient or refractory; not peevish and apt to complain of divine dispensations. Christ says, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls." Matt.11.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matt.5.



1913 Webster's (same page):

[Compar. Meeker (-1913 webster dictionaryr); superl. Meekest.] [OE. mek, meoc; akin to Icel. mj(?)kr mild, soft, Sw. mjuk, Dan. myg, D. muik, Goth. mukam[u

1. Mild of temper; not easily provoked or orritated (sic?); patient under injuries; not vain, or haughty, or resentful; forbearing; submissive.

Now the man Moses was very meek. Num. xii. 3.

2. Evincing mildness of temper, or patience; characterized by mildness or patience; as, a meek answer; a meek face.
"Her meek prayer." Chaucer.

Syn. -- Gentle; mild; soft; yielding; pacific; unassuming; humble. See Gentle.



Modern Miriam-Webster Dictionary:

Definition of MEEK
1: enduring injury with patience and without resentment : mild
2: deficient in spirit and courage : submissive
3: not violent or strong : moderate


So it does look like there has been a shift in the worldly definition of "meek."

That said, I'm not sure it's quite right to provide two different definitions in 1828, one for Moses and one for Christ. Granted, the Old Testament was Hebrew and the New Testament was originally Greek, right? But does that really mean that "meek" had two significantly different meanings Biblically? I don't know about that.

Either way, I think a man could possibly accept 1828 definition 2 in a hero (though "not...self-sufficient" is pushing it). Definition 1, maybe not; "soft" and "yielding" are not really something one expects a hero to be.

1913 would be less popular with heroes, I think ("submissive," "mildness," "soft").

I think the modern definition, with the possible exception of definition 1, is just disastrous for male heroes. Definition 1 actually more or less matches how some Bible sites I saw online defined "meek." Other definitions included "submission to God's will." That sort of submission is super-hard, granted (at least, I struggle with it). But to me it sounds much easier than both submitting to God's direct commands and ALSO being humble and gentle to other people. One page mentioned that meekness to people will come easily if you're completely submissive to God. Could be; I've just never gotten there.