$2,500 eggs

I wish I didn't have an ethical problem with this, or maybe it's an emotional problem, but if I were just willing to donate my eggs to a Raleigh couple who is trying to have a child, I would get $2,500. Per successful donation! lol I'm not even that hard up for money but I could do that once per month and then chill all the time. Haha.

Why is it that I have a problem with that? I mean everyone does... but why? Because we don't want to have a child that we never know, I guess. Which should be reason enough, but it seems like there should be more... maybe this is one of those things that will soon be subject to a vast cultural attitude shift. Maybe in our kids' generation, it will be extremely common (or even somehow unnecessary?) to donate your eggs to infertile couples. Hah. Anyway it's just a random thought.... Now I need to get to work. I'm at Royal Bean which is one of my Raleigh hotspotttttttts - yeah!! However they've made a big change since I was here last. The back half of the shop used to be these desks along the wall, and it was the greatest workspace ever... but now they've converted it to square tables. Apparently it seats 40 rather than 16 people now. But still!

PS. Jordan almonds? Sooooo good. What is in these things? They taste so vanilla-y and wonderful.

Stress thing... not cool

I have this weird thing going on with my body. And I don't know why I'm writing this on my blog except I'm hoping I'm not the only person in the world. So, there is an extremely close connection between my mind and my body. Specifically, whenever I feel stress, nervousness, anxiety, or even just HAPPY excitement, my mind has decided to send my body the signal to get very, very hot and sweat a lot. It actually is sending a heat wave or a hot flash that I can feel sort of ripple throughout my whole body. It's really getting to be a problem, especially because I realize it's connected to stress, so I try hard to relax, but thinking about stress and the whole body response seems to just trigger this all the more. The human body is so weird!! Why is this happening!

Let me tell you two other interesting things (since we're going into my medical history online.. hah). This happened to me once before, during sophomore year of college. It was really bad... but when I went home to Minnesota for summer, it went away immediately. Apparently being in a totally relaxed, safe, stress-free environment was the key to stopping that response. It hasn't happened again until this year... and not like right when I moved or anything. There was no big event here to make this happen.

The other thing is I do think you can mentally sort of... direct energy in your body. I don't know anything about it academically but it just seems to be true for me practically. So today it occurred to me that I keep all my stress in my back, well I already knew that, but a few months ago I started going to the chiropractor regularly. And I think this may coincide with the exact timing of my heat response thing. It's like the main stress/toxins/whatever in my back muscles has been relocated in my body you know? So when I was working out today on the elliptical, I kept concentrating really hard trying to get my stress to go to my back again because, as messed up as it sounds, I'd rather have a sore back than the feeling that I'm on fire and am sweating! And I kid you not... here's the power of the mind again... my back really started hurting again, just like before I went to the chiro.

So I have no answers here... just self-diagnosis. But I am going to start taking at least 20 minutes for deep relaxation in the morning. (I hope I really do that and not just say I'm gonna.) I was reading this thing online about anxiety disorders and, not that I have it, but I definitely have some of the symptoms like inability to concentrate, bad memory, and just plain old tension for no logical reason. Yucky. I feel like I have a lot of unnecessary fears to overcome and I wish I just didn't have them. When I'm comfortable and not stressed, I'm the most happy-go-lucky person in the world... now I just have to let myself be that person all the time. Life is strange... the human body is strange... living in 2006 is strange... growing up is strange... this whole thing is weirding me out a little. lol

Where'd you go?

I love the song and video for Where'd You Go (Fort Minor). Wow. It's really powerful.

Pumping someone else's blood

This is how it works:
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works:
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some...
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You just do it all again...

(Regina Spektor, On the Radio)

Instantly profiled

Not to sound obsessed with suicide, but these stories are always so intriguing to me. And what's even more interesting is looking at them through the lens of the internet. This wouldn't have been possible before, but now when I read a story such as this about a murder-suice in McLean, VA (blocks from where I used to live), now I can take an additional 60 seconds and find this profile of him on his employer's website. Freaky. I did the same thing last week with a professor, I believe in law or criminal justice, who was caught soliciting a prostitute. It said he cried like a baby when he was caught, which for some odd reason made me want to view his faculty page. Maybe the freaky one here is me, I don't know...

Wow. Worth a raised eyebrow

This is just strange. I can't brush over this news item. What makes someone do this? Could be anything, I know... There's a long, complex human history behind the shot, I know... but it's still sad and strange.

World Cup official shot himself

Berlin's top World Cup official shot himself in the head just hours after the tournament ended and is now fighting for his life, police say.

Juergen Kiessling, 65, was rushed to hospital from his house in Reinickendorf, a suburb of Berlin, after a neighbour heard the shot.

The motive for the apparent suicide attempt is not yet clear.

German media report that he left two suicide notes - one for his daughter alone, and one for his family.

Berlin hosted the World Cup final on Sunday, when fans watched Italy beat France on penalties.
Mr Kiessling was known as "Mister WM" (Mr World Cup) by colleagues in Berlin. He was responsible for the hugely successful Fan Mile in Berlin city centre, a concourse where giant screens showed the matches to hundreds of thousands of fans who could not get tickets.

The tournament was widely seen as a great success for the host nation.

I will return

A lot has been happening lately... hence the lag in blogging. Soon we will reach the fullness of time and I can bring you up to speed. :)

One thing I can tell you is that I'm not going to Africa after all... at least not next month. That's good and bad. Really it's just the way it is! Ah well. I do need and want to buy a ticket to go home to Minnesota for a couple weeks. I miss my family so very much.

If you're going through hell...

I don't know why I like this super-countrified song but it chokes me up... I guess it's just the power of someone else saying they've been where you are. I'm not going through hell right now, I'm just sayin I like the song.

Well you know those times
When you feel like there's a sign there on your back
Says I don't mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You'd think they can't get worse than that
And then they do

You still walk the straight and narrow
And you don't know where you are
Use the needle of your compass
To sew up your broken heart
Ask directions from a genie
In a bottle of Jim Beam
And she lies to You
That's when you learn the truth

If you're going through hell, keep on going,
Don't slow down
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get out before the devil even knows you're there

Well I been deep down in that darkness
I been down to my last match
Felt a hundered different demons
Breathing fire down my back
And I knew that if I stumbled
I'd fall right into the trap that they were laying, yeah

But the good news is there's angels everywhere out on the street
Holding out a hand to pull you back upon your feet
The one's that you been dragging for so long
You're on your knees
You might as well be free
Guess what I'm saying

If you're going through hell
Keep on going
Don't slow down
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get outBefore the devil even knows you're there

Yeah, If you're going through hell, keep on moving,
Face that fire, walk right through it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there

(Rodney Atkins)

Constant proof God loves us

"We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."
(Benjamin Franklin)

"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."
(Proverbs 31:6-7)

"Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say is good for me. Nor did I regret it. Wine has been for me a firm friend and a wise counsellor. Often...wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature, and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them."
(Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget)

"What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infininite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?"
(Isak Dineson)

"Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile."
(Homer, The Odyssey)

A really good video

Watch this video on child labor. It is sad but has a very encouraging ending. It's just a couple minutes long.

Some of you have asked why I have all those photos of little girls from around the world on my wall in my office. This is why. Well, it's part of the reason why. Millions of kids, and especially girls, have no access to education (or basic human rights for that matter). It is my reminder to make my education and my life somehow impact theirs.

What's this rush for heaven?

I asked the habitual partygoer just how high she thought she'd get,
And I asked the ethereal girls if they were floating yet

And so I asked the light of the day, what's this rush for heaven,
Then I saw a bird fly away, and I could not ask again.

The tabloid-tainted actress knows the myth of higher ground.
The thing she got from playing a nun she got from sleeping around.

And so I asked the light of the day, what's this rush for heaven,
Then I saw a bird fly away, and I could not ask again.

And I've been running uphill, panting, punching at the air,
Fighting what's been pushing me down, as if it's really there.

And so I asked the light of the day, what's this rush for heaven,
Then I saw a bird fly away, and I could not ask again.

And I saw all this climbing, climbing, just as far from heaven,
Then I saw a bird fly away, and I started climbing again.

(Dar Williams, I Saw a Bird Fly Away)

Great minds

When it comes to creative thinking and brainstorming, you can't say "great minds think alike" when your idea has already been taken. It means you're not creative and thus your mind is not great. Sorry. lol Sad but true.

A song for the church

Yesterday I went down by the Neuse River waterfall for the first time. It's really not that pretty. lol Especially because it's all flooded, muddy, and bug-infested right now. But it's a little secluded so that was perfect. I needed some quiet time, and ended up sort of... writing a first song.

Now I don't think this is that great, but I'm not trying to judge it as good or bad. It's just born out of a feeling that I've been away from God, but coming back is immediate. (In fact I think all of us in Raleigh have felt that way, at least from conversations I've had.) It's funny to feel distant from the Lord, and yet you call on Him and it's like.. you're lying in bed with a lover you forgot was there, you know? He never left, he is that close. And the whole concept of waiting on Him has always been a paradox for me. Waiting is not ceasing movement. So, here, without the melody that's in my head, is my heart:

Waiting

You're always waiting on us
With a quiet belief
That those who find their life in You
Will return in heart and let their wandering cease

You wait for endless days
You make your welcoming love known
And though we feel so desperate, lost, and confused
Your presence makes sure we are never alone

(Chorus)
So, Lord, we wait on You
As you have asked us to do
Come fill our souls with love, peace, and calm
Fill us, Lord, with nothing less than You.

And as your broken child returned
Weary and longing for home
You ran to meet him on that long road
For you, Lord, waiting is running to your own

(Chorus)
So, Lord, we run to You
As you have asked us to do
Come fill our souls with love, peace, and calm
Fill us, Lord, with nothing less than You.

The Office Season 2 DVD in September!

I don't know why I'm such a fool for The Office, but it really makes me laugh out loud like NO OTHER SHOW. I am trying so hard to resist buying the episodes on iTunes because I want to get the DVD when it comes out. So here's some news for you fellow Office lovaz:

Weeeeeell it won't let me cut and paste it. lol Read more for yourself aqui! That link also leads you to a few of the characters' MySpace pages. Slightly out of control but funny.