Wednesday, September 24, 2008

the first of the coffeehouse wisdom

so i've anted to have awesome barista stories to tell, or at least you know, coffeehouse inspiriations. and now i do ^_^
lol tammy (boss) says that she feels like being a barista is like being a bartender... people just talk to you, cuz you're there and theyre there and you just talk. you know how it is. bartenders here everyone's stories... well barsitas do too. lol

anyway, so here's a lttle something about michelle, my other boss. actually she's the owners wife. super sweet lady. i love the poo out of her. anyway. so she has this thing, where she loves to make people who are like "i just drink coffee" try new things... especially lattes. and so far 99% of them have absolutely loved whatever creation she made them try. its so crazy... the thing that i've spent hours thinking about how to solve and she just does it because its who she is. (stick with me here, we're gonna get a little broad-spectrum). so these people have been doing the same thing, the same way, at the same time, drinking the same coffee all their lives. and they never think to try anything new because things are the way they are and they always have been. and alot of times they totally freak out at the thought of trying something new. some of these men it's like pulling teeth to get them to try a latte instead of just loading up their coffee with cream and sugar. but omg, gotta love michelle, she's totally inescapable when she decides she wants to make you a new drink. and if you dont like it, fine, but she'll go a mile out of her way to make you this free drink so you'll try it even when you dont want to because theres a chance you'll end up loving it. and a pretty good chance at that. this realization stuck me rather profoundly this morning and i promptly elevated michelle to superhero status.

the other thing some may agree with and obviously some may not. i'll delve anyway. so a pastor from michelles church came in today and bought a latte and paid with credit. idk if he was liek THE pastor, or worship pastor, or youth pastor, or whatever whatever. i think youth pastor. anyway. so he was saying we needed more bills in the tip jar to encourage people to tip, and he made a comment to the point that he would drop one in but all he had on him was his card, and michelle goes "no no, you're a pastor! you need to conserve." and proceeded to make reference to where in the Bible it says that we should serve those who serve God or whatever. i dont remember wording. i do remember thinking "what the crap? since when does that mean that pastors shouldnt be generous?? they're supposed to be examples right?? and doesnt the bible also say that when you give it will be given unto you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men pour unto your bossom? and that with the same measure you give you will receive? so why shouldnt he be sowing seed and blessing people?" i mean its not about my tips its about this totally unfounded idea that pastors should be frugal. it doesnt make any sense. so people, stop encouraging your pastors to consider themselves poor. and stop making your own judgements aout a pastor's budget. and for God's sake get rid of the idea that God's servants are poor. that's never been the case and never will be. and yes we should serve them and we should bless them at every opportunity. but we should not EVER presume to take that opportunity away from them as well. *definitive nod*

<3

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

boy oh boy!

hmm, lots to report since last i blogged...

ok school:
is boring. had my first midterms in Logic and Physics... pretty sure did well on both... also pretty sure i botched my explanation of Pythagorus' tuning theories... oh well. Lighting is not nearly as exciting as i'd hoped it would be. the teacher has very little enthusiasm when she teaches so everything just kindof comes out flat... no biggie i guess i mean i've survived worse teachers. it's hard to learn anything though because half the people in the class already know everything we're supposed to be learning so the prof just kindof goes off of what they know and uses terms that we havent covered and tends to assume that she doesnt need to go over some stuff because they, being theatre people (even if they are tech) seem to have this inherent compulsion to show off and one-up any person they see. anyway. it's obnoxious. i need to find a way to actually learn stuff in that class or else...

work:
i got a job! i now work at Roots Coffee Co. which just opened in RC. it's a cute little shop. the owners are great they pretty much treat everybody like family. lol. so yeah. love being a barista, pays decently, love the people i work with... and i get free coffee. who can complain? thanks to everyone who's been praying for me and my employment status. God has definitely come through in His usual manner of blowing my socks off ^_^

family:
welllll my parents just got back from colorado. i kindof liked having the house to myself (well, me and sarah) for a week, but i like having them around, too. they're good company. sarah turned 19 on sunday, and we went out to carinos for dinner and then took her shopping. i got her disney radio cds and a new notebook. lol. i'm not sure her disney channel fetish is entirely healthy for a 19-year-old, but hey, whateva. sean (my bro) turns 26 on the 26th, the same day that he's getting MARRIED. so yeah, i'll be going to tulsa for that event this weekend. yay. i dont have a clue what to wear to the wedding though.... and my grandparents are going to arrive today, they'll be staying with us until sometime next week... so woo.

guitar:
i got a guitar!!! i may have mentioned before that metzler had an old guitar that he was gonna give me... so he had his mom ship it down from michigan and then yesterday he brought it up to the coffee shop... :D
i named it Beth. :D
i pretty much love it. it's a yamaha, not persay the highest quality guitar one could find, but not the worst either :) it will do quite nicely for my first guitar.

funny story:
ok, so last weekend we had plans for me to go down to new braunfels with collin and his parents. they have a timeshare down there and collin had tickets to schlitterbahn. welllll, due to hurricane ike, the san antonio area was gonna be packed with evacuees, high gas prices, and bad weather, and schlitterbahn was gonna be closed anyway. so we didn't go. but they still wanted to do something special in the way of salvaging our weekend, so we went out to dinner friday night. we were gonna go fondue, but ended up at Shogun's. it was good . so apart from me leaving my purse at coldstone in denton, the exciting part is yet to come. so we're on our way back to garland, from thence i was to travel home, yes? we had stopped by collin's dorm and got his stuff for the weekend cuz he was gonna spend the night at home. aaanyway. so we're in the car, talking about i dont remember what and his mom said "well you're welcome to stay the night bekah.. i mean you would have stayed with us if we'd gone to the timeshare so i mean we can still make a weekend thing out of it if you want to stay..." .....
....
...
....
wtc? umm ok? maybe it's just me, but arent guy-girl sleepovers kindof taboo in the pro-chastity circle? i mean.... i've always gotten that impression. i mean its not like we'd do anything naughty or anything but still... that totally caught me by surprise. so i was... ok.... umm, thats a little weird... i'll think about it..... ??
so anyway cass was coming to our house that night to ride out the storm (which turned out to be lame) so she was texting me to see when i'd be home and i texted back i might be staying at the bragdon's tonight. and she didnt say anyhting! she was just like, "well i-30's shut down at bass pro" ..... WEIRD. so THEN my dad had called to answer my question on when they were getting in from colorado, and i told him theyd invited me to stay the night and his concern was that he wanted me to be home when the hurricane hit but i told him it wasnt supposed to hit until the next night so he was like "ok, well i guess thatll be okay. have fun"
WHAT?? at this point collin and i decided that either the whole world had gone insane or we'd just crossed over into a parallel universe or something. definitely making a bigger deal than it was, but put yourself in my shoes. thats the last thing i ever expected! so i stayed in his sisters room and wore his sisters clothes and his parents came in at like 11 and were like "were going to bed... do whatever you want... you can play the drums if you want to" (the drums are a big no-no late at night at the bragdon house) ...more weird. so we sat in his living room all night and talked about all sorts of random things. he was like "this is weird. its 4 oclock and you're still here." and i was like "yeah... its liek a sleepover... but with collin" lol. so he asked what sorts of things we do at girl sleepovers and we proceeded to do said things, excluding nail-painting. anyway. yeah. i dont know why all of the sudden the world doesnt think it's a big deal to stay the night at your significant other's house at the request of their [and your] parents for no real reason... idk. nobody tell pastor chris though he might freak out :p

ok i'm done now
enjoy, leave me comments, etc. etc.

<3

Thursday, September 18, 2008

my other grandpappies

so i'm just chillin at school in-between classes... i'll be doing homework in a bit, but to prolong my procrastination i thought i'd do a little blogging

i would love to share the aforementioned (in the previous post) set of lyrics i'm working on... i rather like them... but as of yet i've only got a first verse and prechorus. soooo i'm gonna use a verse of the day that's not from me. two actually, from two of my favorite people :)
i guess most people don't listen to/watch teachings in their free time, but that's their loss i guess. i like to, to strengthen my beliefs, open my eyes to things that i didn't see myself, and they always send me back to the Word, a) to see for myself, test and approve God's good and perfect will, and b) to dig in deeper myself on a given subject. it's awesome to be able to learn from other people's expreience and relationship with God and use that to my advantage and build on it in my own life, rather than reinvent the wheel, so to speak. that's how we get a growing generation :D
ANYWAY. that was an unintended tangent. on to a couple of quotes from two of my favorite teacher/preachers. these men are like my spiritual grandfathers that i've never met. lol. jon laughed at me when i told him that but they really are. i've learned so much from them and have developed a trust in the things that they speak (that is not to say that i don't always test their word against the bible anyway) that they've become like spiritual mentors.. grandfathers.. to me. a little blurb about my spiritual mentors.. there's cassie, my spiritual and biological big sister. there's pastor chris and lisa... pastor chris is really more like the big brother who's like a father than an actual father but just the same i tend to acknowledge him as my spiritual father, and lisa likewise only on the female side. lol. and then theres kenneth and gloria copeland, my oblivious grandparents, and jesse duplantis my hilarious and wise at the same time good time of an other oblivious granddaddy.
ok. heres the quotes [finally]

"Christianity is not a religion. There's been all kinds of religions made from it, but Christianity is God and His family. It is reality." -Kenneth Copeland

i've heard it said so many times, "Christianity is not a religion, blah blah blah.." which i do agree with. this is the best way i've heard it put into words. he was saying something about religion just before he said this that contrasted with God and Christianity, which brought on the revelation that this quote explains. it's not something you do, it's the way things are. something you belong to. you don't have to be your father's son; you are father and son. you are family. ya know?

"I know God's got my back, and I've got His." -Jesse Duplantis

maybe this doesn't mean as much out of context. i just thought it was a good illustration of the two-way relationship that jesse has with God. they're tight, and it's not a one-way thing like so many Christians make it out to be, including myself sometimes. i treat God like He's so far away and doesn't need me for anything. which is true in a sense but i'm not interested in getting into semantics here.. the point is that i've got a part to play too. it's not a two-may mirror where God can see both sides and i can only see me.. it's supposed to be more like a window. ...maybe i just used that analogy because i watched a movie this afternoon and one of the scenes involved a two-way mirror in a dance studio... idk. it was a really cool scene. but the point remains. I trust God to take care of me, and He trusts me to be His ambassador. i wouldnt just stand by and laugh if someone talked crap about my best friend, and the same thing goes for my God. yeah.

class time...

<3

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

mini-post

i'm posting in this few spare minutes mostly just to remind myself that i still have a blog that i'm supposed to make some semblance of updating regularly.

i finished the twilight series since i last posted. it's actually quite goo, truth be told. i'm definitely not one of those squealing, die-hard, i-love-edward-cullen, obsessed teenage girl fans or anything, but it's a good series. and i do like edward. (yes i'm team edward. if anyone actually has a good argument for team jacob i'd like to hear it. lol)

in other news, i'm getting a guitar in the near future. a super-amazing friend of mine had an "extra" one that he never plays hangin around his parents house in michigan so he asked her to send it down and he's gonna give it to me!! awesome, no? (i <3 metzler) so yeah i'll get to be actually practicing and hopefully working a little more seriously on guitar. who knows, maybe i'll even learn to put some music to my lyrics :D

speaking of lyrics, i'm working on a new set right now, inspired by my logic/philosophy professor. my respect for philosophers diminishes with time... i do like aristotle though. he's the best so far.

thats all i have time for! i have to meet my physics "group" to do some hw before my next class....

still looking for a job, btw. please pray for the right job in the right place at the right time for me :D

<3

Thursday, September 4, 2008

i really oughtta

so right now what i really should be doing is driving around rockwall submitting various job applications. or filling them out, at the very least. i know it's no excuse, but.. i just really dont feel like jumping on that right at this very moment. so i'll waste a little time on my blog, and then i'll go do it anyway -_-

school is meh. it's more tiring than i remember it being. i think maybe the whole commuting situation contributes to that. i have however decided that maybe one or two of my professors might obtain my good opinion... the rest of them really arent showing much promise. the philosopher thinks he's amazing and spouts nonsense constantly. the Indian speaks decent english but doesnt always know what she's talking about in the physics department. my lab teacher is cool. total nerd. the lighting designer has alot on her plate, so i'm reserving judgement. i'm inclined to like her though :)
mr government tries to be controversial and bland all at the same time.. and somehow he almost succeeds :/ and last but not least, the editor.. my english teacher... miss happy-go-lucky i have nothing valuable to say that you havent heard before the 10th grade.
bleh. i'll be thankful when my basics are done.
and with that, i promise not to complain about school anymore. i might rant about something stupid mr philosopher said but i'll not complain about school anymore. it's lame. but i already typed it all out so i'm not gonna erase it this time :p

on a more serious and less disappointing note, here's some new lyrics. they go with an amazing piece of music and they make alot more sense sung than written, but here they are anyway. they might make an interesting piece of prose.

The Resurrection

It is finished
the last drop of blood hits the bleeding ground
My God, My God
this world of stain has spent all my heart

the battle is born
conviction still is strong
but evil fights hard
and they need you now

Lightning splits the darkened sky
my body is torn, like the shroud of old
this world I love has hope, and I
I am broken

earthquakes and thunder rolls
power untold
hold onto what you know
I will live

the rising sun
the stoneless grave
see the light
hear the angels say
Jesus our Lord,
He is risen!

Dearest faithless, I am faithful
breathe my breath, touch my scars
love has beaten fear now powerless
the curse is gone; New life starts



and after all
all He wanted was you
the promise holds
God didn't leave you alone.

<3

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

the weekend

i love this weather
its cool (finally), and windy... it rains now and then....
it feels like fall. i love it :D

so last weekend was labor day weekend, which meant no school monday, which is always good.
cass and billy came into town for the weekend, so we hung out with them... my cousin josh, who is a stage manager also was in town with a friend of his, so they came over on saturday for the afternoon... good times. oh, and just for all of you who think that being an artist dooms you to forever be poor, josh just bought a 2008 saturn sky not long ago. (poor people don't buy those)
collin was in town for the weekend too, so we got to hang out quite a bit. it's always good to see him :D
sunday i went to the deep, finally.. its been several weeks since i've been able to go, due to various reasons, but this sunday i went with cass and collin, and tim meister spoke, and it was good. yup.

theres more interesting stuff for me to tell you but i dont feel like writing anymore so.... more later. yeah.

<3