The Hang Drum

The hang is a drum reminiscent (in my opinion) of steel drums, but not as bright-sounding. It sounds very soothing and can be accompanied by a variety of exotic (usually percussive) instruments. 

(photo from Wikipedia)

And I love it.

You can learn all kinds of fun facts about the hang from Wikipedia. But that's not why I'm here right now. I am here simply to tell you about my newfound joy. Because you probably care enough about me to hear all about it. Right? Right.

I was introduced to hang music back in the winter by my good friend, Alex, and thought it was great but promptly forgot about it.

However, a week or two ago, I rediscovered it (reintroduced it to myself) and have been listening to this gorgeous and relaxing "stoner music"a lot since then--mostly by completely abusing YouTube.

Funny thing, I was listening to it and thought Alex would like it, totally forgetting where I had heard of it, and posted a video on his facebook wall, only to be embarrassed when he told me he was the one that introduced me to it. Bad friend award for me. The end.

Anyway, I thought I had a lot more to say on this topic, but I guess I don't.

I feel like I have weird musical interests. Because I'm a music major, people think it's appropriate to ask what kind of music I like/listen to. I hate this question. My favorite band will always and forever be Relient K, but I also like bluegrass, and apparently now hang music. I'm not even sure of what genre that falls under. Oh, and I guess I like Johnny Cash. And Adele. And Queen. And organ music. And that one horribly depressing but awesome-sounding song that my sister introduced me to.

So yeah. Please don't ask what kind of music I like. I won't know what to tell you. But I love music, and now I love the hang, and that's all I have to say.


God bless.

Restlessness

Every now and then, but not frequently, I want to run away.

It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my life... well, not really anyway.

It's just that I'm bored. I've never had a ridiculously traumatic experience or am living a terrible life. I just sort of feel like I'm living a boring, predictable life. And I should find great comfort in that. In fact, I usually do. Things could be so much worse for me. But sometimes, that is, once in a blue moon, it's not enough and I hunger for more.

Right now is one of those moments.

Several people at church asked me tonight what I had going this week that I was excited for, or looking forward to, or that I could use prayer for-- and I had no real answer to give them. On the chalkboard section of the wall in the bathroom (at said church), someone had written, "What are you waiting for?" I didn't know. I was waiting for nothing. So I wrote, "Something to happen." I wasn't trying to be melodramatic; I was trying to be honest.

So I came home and I have been sitting in my room staring into space for 20 minutes while Amy does Bible homework, and thinking about what the heck my problem is.

I still can't say what that problem is, but the ingenious solution I came up with was running away.

So goodbye everyone, I'm going to Brazil or India or possibly the deepest, most remote part of Africa, and I am going to learn another culture and become someone different instead of merely the person I have learned to be. I am going to take God with me (of course, because I take him everywhere with me, he is my beloved constant companion), and we are going to experience something other than Ohio where I drive a car and eat food that is given to me on a plastic plate with silverware and napkins. I am going to see an incredible animal and hear and play new music and dance boldly with all my might around a fire at night under starlight and eat my meal sitting on the ground with no shoes on. I want to communicate with someone through laughter alone, someone whose language I do not know (yet).

Also I am going someplace warm because I am grumpy that winter is impending here.

I will miss everyone terribly and I will write you all letters and hope to receive a reply but I do not know when I will see you again... here, there, or in the air, I guess.


...What does God want of/for me?? Why do I feel this restlessness?


God bless.

Superhero

If I could be a superhero, I know exactly what I'd want my power to be.


Reading minds.

It's true. I legitimately love getting into people's heads and figuring them out, figuring out what's going on up there.

Maybe that's why I'm a psychology major.

This isn't some weird sick pleasure. I like knowing because I care about you people. I just like understanding the human psyche and how it affects what we do. And, in turn, maybe I can help. Maybe. Hopefully.

I just feel like being able to read minds automatically instead of always trying to dig deeper would be so much more convenient. It would save the trouble of actually spending time and getting to know a person...sheesh! What a drag! (facetious)

So it will come as no surprise to you when we had Superhero Tuesday for dinner at camp, that I became Synapse, the evil villain who can read minds. I wish I had pictures to show you, as I'm sure I was a sight to behold. I put my hair up in crazy ponytails, tied a brightly-colored scarf around my neck as a cape, put on crazy, bold makeup, and carried a slinky around, holding it an arch and moving the ends up and down obsessively while I stared at people.

But Synapse was not the only Superhero (or super villain, in that case) I became this summer.

The next time Superhero Tuesday came around, I was PopTab Princess, clad in my many pop tab belts wrapped around my various limbs, and fighting crime by expelling pop tabs out of my hands/fingers.

The last week of camp, a last-minute revelation transformed me into Captain Hygiene. A shower cap on the top of my head, a towel as my cape, a loufa around my wrist, a toothbrush and Q-tips stuck into my ponytail of dreads, and carrying a tube of toothpaste, which I would dramatically "squirt" into people's unclean, unbrushed mouths. I was valiant indeed.

I don't remember that many other people's superhero entities, but I remember Caroline's dressing up in pajamas and saving the world from homesickness, and Sarah's dressing and walking all backwards, saving the world from logic.

Now.
Here's my question for you.

If you have ever dressed up as a superhero, what/who was it?
-or-
If you were to dress up as a superhero, what/who would it be?
-or-
What would your ideal superpower be?

Go.


God bless.

Cristina's Biography

I know a girl named Cristina.

She has dark brown hair and glasses.

She used to wear a boot on her leg, but now she does not. She had to wear it because she ran too much and her bone got sick.

She has a brother and another brother and a sister.

She likes math but not art.

One time she went to Jamaica to tell people about Jesus.

She is my friend. Also my neighbor in my hallway.

I love my friend Cristina.

That is all.

God bless.

How to Make Pop Top Belts

For those of you who don't know, I have a past time of making belts.... out of pop tabs/tops. You know. These guys:

The belts are pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. If you want, I will try and be one of those super crafty bloggers who generously share all their creations with the rest of the world. At least I will for this one post. Don't expect me to be doing madness like this all the time. I am far too uncreative for that.

Without further ado, okay. (By the way, don't be discouraged by how much I write. I am going to be very thorough, but this is actually pretty easy to do.)

You want to find some sort of cord or ribbon with which to weave the pop tabs together. Something as thin as embroidery floss will not work. Find something durable, but if you go with pretty ribbon, don't choose anything wider than a quarter of an inch. Measure out four yards (or about four meters) of your cord. This will be a good length for anyone with a relatively normal waist size. I wear pant size 5-ish, and if I make a belt for a waist my size, I still have plenty of cord leftover if I wanted to make the belt longer. If you are ridiculously skinny or are making the belt for a small-ish child, you can probably get away with cutting the cord off at three yards, but if you need to make the cord be longer, say five or six yards, that's fine. It's always better to guess high and then be able to cut cord off at the end than to get to the end of your belt and realize it's too short and have to start over with longer cord.

Once you have your cord, fold it in half and tie a loop in the middle.

[Optional step]: Oftentimes, I like to add a liquid called Fray Check to the tips of my cord or ribbon. This hardens it like a shoelace after drying for about half an hour, and keeps the cord from fraying as you work. Just follow the directions for it on the bottle. You can find it in craft stores, and probably stores like Walmart too.

Now you need to gather your pop tabs. Start with about a hundred (You may only need 70 or 80 if you are super skinny), but start there and get more later if you need it.

Get your first tab and hold it under the knot where you made your loop.

Take the ends of your long cord and put one end through one hole of the pop tab, and the other through the other hole. Make sure the knot is still on top when you're done, and the shiny side of the tab is facing you.

Now flip your pop tab over. Now the knot is on bottom and the "rough" side of the pop tab is facing you. Move your cord out of the way so you can see it better.

Grab a second pop tab and line it up with the one you just did. Make sure the "bottom" hole lines up with the bottom hole of your first one, and the "top" whole lines up with the top of the first one. Your second pop tab should have the shiny side facing you. That's what makes the belt reversible.

Now you have a top cord and a bottom cord. Put the top cord through both top holes and the bottom cord through both bottom holes. Now when you let go, both pop tabs should stay on there.

Flip your belt over again. Repeat what you just did, except this time, put the bottom cord through both top holes, and the top cord through both bottom holes. This will make an X, and is also what makes the belt reversible.

Repeat over and over, with one side having "lines" (top cord through top holes, bottom cord through bottom holes), and the other side having "X's" (bottom cord through top holes, top cord through bottom holes.

Once your belt is long enough, tie the two cords together at the end of the last pop tab to keep the belt from loosening.

I'm sure you can figure out creative ways to tie your belt (and yes, it will hold your pants up!), but usually I just string the two cords through the loop, then tie the cords. You can figure out what works for you.

Something to note when you are trying to decide how long to make your belt is the fact that the length from the tip of the loop to the very last pop top will always be the tightest you can get it. You can always take pop tabs off later when you courageously lose fifty pounds, but if your trousers are too big and your belt is longer than your waist, the job won't get done. That's why you want a little bit of cord hanging off, so you can make it as tight or loose as you like. So yay! You have a belt!

History:
I started making belts when I was in 8th grade after I saw them at a craft show. I made them for all my friends for Christmas that year, and didn't stop. I have been making them for the last seven years. I give them as gifts, sell them for $5, or donate them (so the organization/whatever can sell them and make money.) I made one special belt last summer out of all colored tabs, and it is my pride and joy (you can see it on the right in the photo). Sometimes I teach my campers at camp how to make them (it's amazing how many ways they find to mess it up). Making belts haven't had any profound impact on my life, but it's something "unique" that I like to share.

God bless.

Dreadiversary

Wrote this only a few days afterward, but didn't have the cord to hook up my camera to get the photos on there. Sorry for the delay, but please enjoy!

My one-year anniversary of getting dreadlocks was August 28th. I celebrated by going to my second day of classes of my fifth semester of college. I went to creative writing, biopsychology, and American Sign Language. I ran three miles, sat by the fountains on campus sipping a caramel frappuccino and later ate ice cream with Cru where I introduced myself and talked to a ton of freshmen. Oh, and I took photos of my dreadlicious hair (my beloved roommate, Amy, helped me with the back of the head ones):

Out of my 65 total dreadlocks, I now have several dreads with names. If you remember when you see me (if, indeed, you have ever or ever will meet me), ask me to introduce you to Lumpy, SquigglyPants, Elaine, Greta, Graft, Fatty, Levi, or Horatio.

While eating my delicious ice cream that evening, I met a cool freshman named Garrett, who was curious about my dreads. He asked me if I got them just for the style or if I was doing it to promote some sort of lifestyle. ("Like vegetarianism?" I suggested jokingly. I'm not a vegetarian.) I know I've written something like this in my blog before, but this is how I answered him (roughly, and in fewer words):

"Well, at first I got dreads because I loved the style; I thought they looked so cool. But after having them awhile, I realized they did a lot more for who I was. I became more "approachable" to people. Instead of just being this cute little middle-class white girl, I was suddenly less bland and had an instant conversation starter. It no longer appeared that I have the perfect life or have nothing interesting to say. It helps a lot of people relate to me better. I get to talk to more people despite my shy nature, which in turn opens up more opportunities to share Christ. So that's not why I got them, but that's why I'm keeping them for a while."

And, in case you were wondering, I still wash and tend to them regularly, so they are, for the most part, clean.

If you are reading about my dreads for the first time and are curious about how they are made or how I adjusted to them, feel free to read these other posts:
http://musiclaughtersilence.blogspot.com/2011/09/dreadlocks.html
http://musiclaughtersilence.blogspot.com/2011/12/stereotypes-are-bad-dreadlocks-and.html
or just ask me about them! If you couldn't tell, I'd love to chat about them or anything else on your mind :)

God bless.

Loving God

Loving God sounds easy. After all, God is God, and that's pretty awesome. He did cool stuff and he made cool stuff and he sent his son to die and whatnot, so what's not to love?

I have been finding recently that my love for God has been, well, sucky. (Pardon my french.) I'll wake up in the morning and instantly be wrapped up in my own little selfish world, with thoughts like, "What can I do to make myself happy today?" and "How does this affect me?" and "Maybe I should read my Bible today. Maybe."

And then time passes and I start to think, "I need to get my act together. I need to read my Bible and pray and go to more Christian stuff. Because I am just not loving God enough."

The ultimate goal is to love God more. But even if I try my darnedest,
I fail.
Epically.

1) I can't love God on my own accord, because the only true love comes from God anyway. My love for God has to come from God.
2) I am dumb. At least compared to our Creator. I can't even fathom the magnitude of his love and what he's done for me. So how can I love him for what he's done when I don't even know because I'm merely human with a merely human intellect? There's no way I can begin to wrap my mind around why I should love him. How can I truly "get" it?

I read an article today, and a fine one too, about how we shouldn't let the Bible get "boring" for us. And it went into great detail with all kinds of metaphors and everything about how incredibly mind-boggling Jesus' love for us is and how the story of the Gospel is too remarkable to ever get tired of. And then it ended as if he just proved to all the readers why should be totally in love with God, no excuses.

Well. Maybe some of the other people who read that article had a stunning revelation and it really did change their perspective on how significant Christ's sacrifice is. But I'm a dumb human. I'm blind to the reality of it. "Oh, yeah, another reminder that Jesus died for me. Sweet, yep, okay." Why do we get bored of its daily newness? Because we're human, and humans are sinners, and sinners, well, don't care about Christ's love for them.

That being said, do we have an excuse for brushing off the significance of the Gospel or the magnitude of Christ's love? Uh, no. Our efforts are mostly, but not entirely, in vain. We should always be striving to love God more and to see his glory and goodness in our daily lives. And no, we'll never "get it" fully, but maybe, just maybe, we'll get it a little more tomorrow than we did today, with the help of his wisdom. And although we will never, ever love him as much as he loves us, maybe, just maybe, with the help of his love, we will love him a little more tomorrow than we did today.


God bless.