Monday, July 21, 2014
I am
Most of my life has revolved around my feelings. Once, someone I look up to told me I was extreme, just based off of one conversation we were having and my polar feelings on the matter. He was more right than he knew. Unfortunately most of that feeling has been extreme sadness. I have been so focused on who I am not that I didn't take the time to see who I am, and who I can be. I am not skinny, I am not liked, I am not good enough, I am not right in the head, I am not able to maintain a social life, I am not, I am not. And it has taken me this long to say that I am loved by many, I am made in God's image, I am sweetly broken, I am an important influence, I am saved by grace, and I am a crazy teenager who has the potential to one day rock the world at its foundations. I am, and not being is not acceptable. Not being extraordinary with myself is not acceptable, because average is for those who do not care, and I am extreme. I don't know exactly where I'm going, or how I'm going to get there, but I have faith God will get me there in the end. God bless you all.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
STEAMPUNK!!!!!!!!!!
Ohmigosh, complete fangirling moment right here! It is ON! I have discovered the wonderfully dark and antiquated mechanical world of Steampunk! *sigh* Ok... I think I'm done. NOT!
Ok, for the millions of you poor people out there who are in the dark to what the wonderful world of steampunk is, I shall attempt to describe it to you. It centers around what I (possibly inaccurately) call Victorian London. Mostly it revolves around teen novels centered during this time period, but there's a twist- and a big one. The world is almost always focused on steam power. Electricity is benched to create an alternate history- one focused on steam-powered mechanics and technology, lots of gears, lots of leather, lots of chain and metal, and generally some very spunky heroines. Throw in automatons, steam-powered weaponry and transportation, and occasionally some twisted DNA, and you get one very dirty steam-filled world in the chaos of industrial revolution and Victorian values from a modern viewpoint. The whole thing started out there as an idea, and has morphed into a who genre of books, clothing, and accessories. One that sadly few know of. Oh well, I DO! XD
I just finished a book entitled The Girl in the Steel Corset, which I loved. Perhaps a little historically inaccurate, but most of these are in one way or another. I just usually grumble and move on past it into the glorious plot. And glorious this plot is. It was based around a girl named Finley, an average commoner who has basically a split personality. You find out later in the book her father was a scientist which literary history calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (for those of you not familiar with the particulars of that book, a scientist separates his goodness and his evil into effectively split personalities, but the evil is a monster that eventually destroys his goodness). So poor Finley has a darker side that comes out when she feels threatened and it causes all sorts of problems for her. She end up hanging out with this Duke named Griffin and his friends who also are abnormal in one way or another, and because of the same little bacteria-like buggers called Organites, which their parents messed about with. This insane man named the Machinist, an old friend of everyone's parents (who he killed, btw), then tries to kill them all, but not before we get an American cowboy involved, a love story happily situated, and the reader (well, me at least) just about screaming at Griffin and Finley, who obviously have feelings for each other but refuse to admit it because they're being stupid combined with the fact that she's a commoner and he's the next step down from prince... argh frustration. Book two, here I come.
Another great Steampunk series is the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld. Much more historically accurate than the Steel Corset book, it is a very interesting read I highly recommend to anyone. It basically creates a world divided between those who accept steam-powered machines and those that have eschewed dirty steam for animals specially "fabricated" from "life threads" (DNA cough cough). These beast are combinations of several other animals and are used for all sorts of things from cleaning and mail service to air transportation. Throw in a girl disguised as a boy so she can get into the Royal Service and fly, and the kind-of illegitimate son of an Austrian Archduke, and you've got a plot that is impossible to ignore. Oh, did I mention that WWII begins shortly into book 1? *sigh*
Ugh, I have basically written a novel for you and haven't even begun to discuss clothes. Well, if you stuck with me this far, I recommend you go google steampunk clothing immediately. Its all just so fantastic!!! I hardly know what to do with myself. I found this really cool instruction vid for how to make goggles from foam. His instructions are a little much for me, personally. Epoxy? no thanks... Latex? Ugh... what a mess. However, I do have the basic craft foam, and a little hot glue and Aleen's should be able to fix all the overly-fancy gluing problems I may face. I am biting at the bit to get started, but I dont have a spare set of sunglasses lying around for the lenses. I am gonna have to improvise anyway, because you need to pay $5 to get the template. I'm just gonna freehand it and roll, which will be more fun anyway, but is gonna take longer, and I'm gonna need to get my sunglass lenses ahead of time so I can work with them. The price I pay for improv DIY... oh well! Still super excited!
Ok, for the millions of you poor people out there who are in the dark to what the wonderful world of steampunk is, I shall attempt to describe it to you. It centers around what I (possibly inaccurately) call Victorian London. Mostly it revolves around teen novels centered during this time period, but there's a twist- and a big one. The world is almost always focused on steam power. Electricity is benched to create an alternate history- one focused on steam-powered mechanics and technology, lots of gears, lots of leather, lots of chain and metal, and generally some very spunky heroines. Throw in automatons, steam-powered weaponry and transportation, and occasionally some twisted DNA, and you get one very dirty steam-filled world in the chaos of industrial revolution and Victorian values from a modern viewpoint. The whole thing started out there as an idea, and has morphed into a who genre of books, clothing, and accessories. One that sadly few know of. Oh well, I DO! XD
I just finished a book entitled The Girl in the Steel Corset, which I loved. Perhaps a little historically inaccurate, but most of these are in one way or another. I just usually grumble and move on past it into the glorious plot. And glorious this plot is. It was based around a girl named Finley, an average commoner who has basically a split personality. You find out later in the book her father was a scientist which literary history calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (for those of you not familiar with the particulars of that book, a scientist separates his goodness and his evil into effectively split personalities, but the evil is a monster that eventually destroys his goodness). So poor Finley has a darker side that comes out when she feels threatened and it causes all sorts of problems for her. She end up hanging out with this Duke named Griffin and his friends who also are abnormal in one way or another, and because of the same little bacteria-like buggers called Organites, which their parents messed about with. This insane man named the Machinist, an old friend of everyone's parents (who he killed, btw), then tries to kill them all, but not before we get an American cowboy involved, a love story happily situated, and the reader (well, me at least) just about screaming at Griffin and Finley, who obviously have feelings for each other but refuse to admit it because they're being stupid combined with the fact that she's a commoner and he's the next step down from prince... argh frustration. Book two, here I come.
Another great Steampunk series is the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld. Much more historically accurate than the Steel Corset book, it is a very interesting read I highly recommend to anyone. It basically creates a world divided between those who accept steam-powered machines and those that have eschewed dirty steam for animals specially "fabricated" from "life threads" (DNA cough cough). These beast are combinations of several other animals and are used for all sorts of things from cleaning and mail service to air transportation. Throw in a girl disguised as a boy so she can get into the Royal Service and fly, and the kind-of illegitimate son of an Austrian Archduke, and you've got a plot that is impossible to ignore. Oh, did I mention that WWII begins shortly into book 1? *sigh*
Ugh, I have basically written a novel for you and haven't even begun to discuss clothes. Well, if you stuck with me this far, I recommend you go google steampunk clothing immediately. Its all just so fantastic!!! I hardly know what to do with myself. I found this really cool instruction vid for how to make goggles from foam. His instructions are a little much for me, personally. Epoxy? no thanks... Latex? Ugh... what a mess. However, I do have the basic craft foam, and a little hot glue and Aleen's should be able to fix all the overly-fancy gluing problems I may face. I am biting at the bit to get started, but I dont have a spare set of sunglasses lying around for the lenses. I am gonna have to improvise anyway, because you need to pay $5 to get the template. I'm just gonna freehand it and roll, which will be more fun anyway, but is gonna take longer, and I'm gonna need to get my sunglass lenses ahead of time so I can work with them. The price I pay for improv DIY... oh well! Still super excited!
Darkness and Light
For many years of my life I struggled with the idea of darkness. Growing up in my Christian School setting, I developed this idea that my inner human nature of sin was something I needed to separate from my "light", from God and all that I considered good of myself. From this, I mistakenly developed this idea that somehow self confidence = pride, which = sin, which = darkness. You can see why I was miserable there for a while. Thinking that any self confidence is something you need to get rid of immediately can get you to a dismal place. Mind you, too much confidence is bad, and a healthy fear of God is really nice to have. But, that is mostly just a rabbit trail. Back to the prize stag.
I am prone to kind of these dark, gloomy brooding sessions. They are more prone to happen in the winter and leave me an emotional wreck at the end- so as nice as the wisdom that I find while in my deep blue funks are, sometimes I wonder if they are worth it and if they could please, at their earliest convenience, bugger off, if they would be so kind. But, seeing as how this has been a lifetime thing so far, buggering off does not seem to be something likely to occur soon. ANYWAYS. So, many times my brooding funks have taken me to evaluating light and darkness. Fun topics, I know. Real happy and fluffy. Kittens and all that. I don't know, but light and darkness are nice deep topics that my brooding side enjoys.
After much of this brooding, and a great deal of thought on the matter while not in my brooding moods, I have concluded that my initial idea of separate light and darkness within me is, in fact, false. I mean, everybody knows that light and darkness are opposites, right? That means they can't mix? Well, you should probably contact a legit philosopher on this if you want more than my ramblings. However, I think humanity is more complicated than simple good and bad, light and dark. We were created as beings of purity and light, but we desecrated it in the pursuit of knowledge (ironic much, that?). So, now, we are inherently beings of the dark, but we all seem to have some light within us, at least at some point in our lives. But this does not mean that we have two sides, either. I tried that too, basically almost splitting my personality to light and dark, and ignoring what I considered dark. Well, that's what I told myself I was doing.
When it comes down to it though, I think that human nature is more complicated than good and bad sides. The older I get and the more time I spend in the world, the more I am assured of this observation. Perhaps a better description would be a dual nature. We were given knowledge of good and evil in the Fall, and we say that Jesus had a dual nature of deity and humanity, so why couldn't this be the case? Perhaps we are at all times inherently good and evil, and our actions are dictated by situation and personality. This is not to say that God is not involved in this. He ultimately has the power to change situations to His will, and if He has saved us, then He has influence on our personality. So anyways, I figured out that once I got over the whole "banish the inner dark part of your soul" and moved on to "hey, I'm a mess, so let's work on fixing it" side of perspective, life has been a lot nicer for me to deal with. No more blame, etc. I am me, no blaming the devil or demons or "the dark side" (and, no, they don't have cookies), just flawed little me.
Maybe I am just being silly once again. For what is darkness but absence of light? Maybe it is not possible for one to have light and not have it at the same time, or maybe my convoluted outlook is right for once.
Maybe I need some color..... this black and white business is awfully bland
And maybe I should just leave philosophy to those who think professionally.....
I am prone to kind of these dark, gloomy brooding sessions. They are more prone to happen in the winter and leave me an emotional wreck at the end- so as nice as the wisdom that I find while in my deep blue funks are, sometimes I wonder if they are worth it and if they could please, at their earliest convenience, bugger off, if they would be so kind. But, seeing as how this has been a lifetime thing so far, buggering off does not seem to be something likely to occur soon. ANYWAYS. So, many times my brooding funks have taken me to evaluating light and darkness. Fun topics, I know. Real happy and fluffy. Kittens and all that. I don't know, but light and darkness are nice deep topics that my brooding side enjoys.
After much of this brooding, and a great deal of thought on the matter while not in my brooding moods, I have concluded that my initial idea of separate light and darkness within me is, in fact, false. I mean, everybody knows that light and darkness are opposites, right? That means they can't mix? Well, you should probably contact a legit philosopher on this if you want more than my ramblings. However, I think humanity is more complicated than simple good and bad, light and dark. We were created as beings of purity and light, but we desecrated it in the pursuit of knowledge (ironic much, that?). So, now, we are inherently beings of the dark, but we all seem to have some light within us, at least at some point in our lives. But this does not mean that we have two sides, either. I tried that too, basically almost splitting my personality to light and dark, and ignoring what I considered dark. Well, that's what I told myself I was doing.
When it comes down to it though, I think that human nature is more complicated than good and bad sides. The older I get and the more time I spend in the world, the more I am assured of this observation. Perhaps a better description would be a dual nature. We were given knowledge of good and evil in the Fall, and we say that Jesus had a dual nature of deity and humanity, so why couldn't this be the case? Perhaps we are at all times inherently good and evil, and our actions are dictated by situation and personality. This is not to say that God is not involved in this. He ultimately has the power to change situations to His will, and if He has saved us, then He has influence on our personality. So anyways, I figured out that once I got over the whole "banish the inner dark part of your soul" and moved on to "hey, I'm a mess, so let's work on fixing it" side of perspective, life has been a lot nicer for me to deal with. No more blame, etc. I am me, no blaming the devil or demons or "the dark side" (and, no, they don't have cookies), just flawed little me.
Maybe I am just being silly once again. For what is darkness but absence of light? Maybe it is not possible for one to have light and not have it at the same time, or maybe my convoluted outlook is right for once.
Maybe I need some color..... this black and white business is awfully bland
And maybe I should just leave philosophy to those who think professionally.....
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