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Dance From the Center

BridgeTown Swing 2005

Val once told me that Marco said that you’re not the same dancer after a dance convention. I wholeheartedly agree. I think that anyone who spends an entire weekend reuniting with friends, learning more about their craft, being inspired by champion dancers, and dancing with people from all around would hardly remain the same dancer. Then, if you compete, you’re also spending the weekend looking for partners for strictly swing, dancing with other people around your level for Jack and Jills, changing outfits each round of competition, dancing until the sun comes up, and wondering if you’ll be awake for work the next week. How can anyone stay the same?

Categories
Picture This

170th and Elmonica

Waiting at the MAX stationThere are mornings where I drag myself to get to work, knowing I have a 25 minute walk to the MAX station. Although I know that the exercise is great to wake me up and maintain my health, sometimes it’s still a chore. Especially when it’s cold and rainy.

However, when it’s foggy, I enjoy looking around because it’s a whole new world. I’m only aware of my environment to a certain distance then it blends into a solid gray. At 170th and Elmonica, where the closest MAX (Portland’s mass transit) station is, I took out my camera to capture some of the foggy elements. I’ve often looked down the distance of the tracks and enjoyed the lines.

When I saw the stop sign, rather than reading it literally as a caution to watch out for the train when crossing tracks, I was reminded that in life, to stop and smell the roses on occasion.

And as life would have it sometimes, when you’re waiting for your train, it seems like the train going the opposite way comes frequently. Until you’re waiting for that train then the other train comes more often.

Categories
Straight to True North

Who Killed Santa?

From my worldview class I’m currently taking, one of the required texts is “Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller. In the second chapter, he wonderfully describes how Santa was destroyed in his youth. I think we all have a moment in our youths where a part of our innocence is lost.

Categories
Picture This

Elsie Macaroni

Elsie eating her macaroniMy boss at work has an adorable little girl who’s about to turn one. She’s recently started to walk and she’s fun to watch. She’s not people shy and gets excited easily. It’ll be great fun when she starts to talk.

On two occasions, Jenni has gotten the opportunity to babysit Elsie while her mom and dad had a meeting. Jenni and Elsie would hang out at the Vernier Gym at my workplace, playing with pilates balls, basketballs, and her own stroller. In this picture, she was enjoying her macaroni. I like this picture because it captures her heightened awareness of the world around her.

Categories
Straight to True North

Creation vs. Evolution

Lately, when my mom has come and visited me, she’s brought some neat videos from an organization called Answers in Genesis.

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Clearing the Cache

Photo Management

The world is becoming a huge photo album of pictures from everyone’s digital cameras. I almost think that digital photography is as everyday as blogging. It’s been amazing how low the prices have gone for a good digital camera, and now the skills of an amateur photographer isn’t hindered because their wallet isn’t as deep as the professionals. So now, we all have tons of digital photographs, what do we do with them?

Categories
Dance From the Center

I Love to Dance!

As you can read in David’s post, BridgeTown Swing 2005 was very memorable for us. The week before, I honestly had no idea if I would be able to dance at all. (My story explains my situation a little more.) I was pretty much bed ridden all of Labor Day Weekend until Wednesday. As we headed towards the airport I asked David if I was supposed to feel like my body has been through a whole dance event before even going.

Categories
Dance From the Center

It Is Time…

“The Lims had a very good weekend.” – Grace Killelea, BridgeTown 2005 M.C.

Categories
Journey to Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia – Part 7

The last story in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia is called The Last Battle. It starts out with a talking ape named Shift, and a talking donkey named Puzzle. Shift is very clever and Puzzle is not so clever and he is pretty much the ape’s slave, doing everything he tells him to. They find a dead lion, and Shift takes the skin of it and puts it on Puzzle to make him look like Aslan from a distance. Shift acts as Aslan’s mouthpiece and starts ordering the talking beasts to clear the forests alongside Calormen solders that have been sneaking to the north a few at a time. When the last king on Narnia, Tirian, and his best friend, Jewel the unicorn, find out that the nyads and dryads (the living souls of the trees) are being murdered, they fly out in a hastened rage to find out who is to blame. When they hear that Aslan is the one ordering such terrible acts, they find themselves at a loss as to what to do.

Categories
Journey to Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia – Part 6

The next to last story is called The Silver Chair. It starts out with Eustace finding his friend, Jill, crying because the school bullies are picking on her. At their school, the Experiment House, the people who ran it thought that kids “should be allowed to do what they liked,” and unfortunately there were a group of kids who did horrible things and picked on other kids mercilessly. Instead of getting expelled, they were talked to by the Head who didn’t punish them but treated the situations as “interesting psychological cases.” Well, it is in the middle of chase from the bullies that Eustace and Jill are taken from the Experiment House to a tremendous cliff in the other world. It is there that Jill receives a task from Aslan: