video games are dumb

Help! I'm trapped at my friend's house an hour away from home with my friends who are obsessed with Age of Empires 2! It's two in the morning and I'm stuck here because I didn't drive.  And I'm bad at AOE.  And I don't care.  foo

Body Building

While milking in the mornings, the radio in the parlor is always playing KNWC.  First, let me say it was nice at first, but after two weeks of it, it's become a bit ridiculous.  Every morning I hear the same songs played.  Honestly, I think they just change the order and switch in ten new songs or so.  Kinda disappointed when considering how much good music there is out there compared to how much actually gets played.  But the main point of this blog is to point out a couple lines from a song that gets played often enough for me to have most of it memorized.  Stronger by Mandisa.  Another encouraging "life sucks but its ok cuz you have Jesus" songs.  Sure, most of it is good, but the last and main line of the chorus is "He knows that this is gunna make you stronger". 

Really?  Will it make you stronger?  Or will it make your trust in God stronger?  It seems those are the two options.  We could take the world's recommended course of action after hardships and become a stronger person and all that junk.  But to me that seems a lot like sticking an air compressor hose in your arm and pumping it up.  Sure, your muscles look bigger, but does it help?  I think when I'm at my weakest and most-bombarded, I'd rather depend on somebody else who already has the strength to handle it than endure the trial simply for the sake of coming out on the other end more self-reliant and assured of my ability to survive on my own.  When trials come, I think I'd rather have my weakness made evident so my trust goes to someone besides myself.  So, life is hard.  God's muscles or mine?

Sorry Mandisa.  I don't want to be stronger.

I was going to attempt to blog, but then i remembered that my sister's hard drive is plugged into my computer with new music that I don't have yet, so i'm going to do that instead.

Send me Summer

It's summer.  I survived exams and sophomore year, which I realized went by faster than anything else ever.  To be honest, I barely remember much of it.  Which is sad if this is the best years of my life. Anyways, two weeks ago, I planned on working on the farm again because every other job pursuit had failed(or so I thought).  Now, I have two jobs, one full-time and the other part time.  Needless to say, I will be working quite a bit this summer until I leave in July.  There are positives and negatives, but what seems to be overriding all these is the fact that I will finally be able to fill out the "List your most recent three jobs" section of a job application with something other than guitar lessons and teaching a guitar class for two weeks.  Not to mention that I can have references other than my youth pastor on my resume.  Maybe this is too much work just for a better resume, but I really would like to work somewhere else, not because I don't like the farm or my dad (or the flexibility), but because I'd just like to try something different than I've done the last 5 years.  Besides, it'll only be for six weeks, so if I hate it, it'll at least be short.  I think it'll go okay, though.  Have a good summer everyone.

ps - one huge downside - I'll barely be able to play league soccer this summer.  That's usually one of the highlights of my summer.  shoot.

destroy.rebuild

So, in dealings with and speakings to those around me, a certain idea seems to be of importance; also, this idea is  needed just as badly to be instilled, taught, or smacked into me, whichever is most effective.  When we think of Christ changing our lives, of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, of taking off the old self and putting on the new self, don't we often think of that as something that still occurs in the life we lived before?  It's easy to take the old Jon Bierma and replace him with Jesus' new version of Jon Bierma and put him back into his life as it was, but with some changes.  But what if giving our lives as living sacrifices means that the very foundation of our lives is different?  If our old selves have died, there's nothing left; if anything is to be rebuilt, the very basis of our lives will be different.  Too often, Christ is an add-on in my life; I have my traditions and beliefs rooted in 20 years of life, and yes, Christ pokes holes in some of it, but he fills in the cracks with cement patches. But no, Christ throws that one out and starts over, not just remodeling the house, but starting from the ground up.  If my life is changed, then my life might be like Jesus, but if my life is new, then for me to live is Christ, because Christ is my life, not just something in it.  This isn't just an election for who's running the government in my life, it's a completely new country. Am I putting Jesus into my life, or am I putting my life into Jesus?

*Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 3:9-10, Philippians 2:21, Colossians 3:3-

A Song of Colonial Mexican Bakers

For my Latin American History research paper, I am arguing how food is a national identity in Mexico.  At least, that's what I'm supposed to be doing.  I was intrigued by a song I found in one of the books about Mexican food, so I felt compelled to share it with you.  The lyrics are beautiful and moving, so to think that 18th century street musicians composed these words is unexpected.  Taken directly from a historical source, renowned for its accuracy and amount of information.



He is really a baker
who doesn't indulge himself;
and if you give him a tiny
kiss, he'll start to work.

She is really a baker
who doesn't indulge herself;
take off your underpants
because I want to party.



There you have it.  I blame this for the existence of American pop "music" in the condition it's in today.

No, I am not thinking about buying Manchester Orchestra's $90 pre-order bundle?

Every time I buy a song from iTunes, a little part of me dies.  No, not because I'm fueling the music industry's chokehold on artists who create music and pour their lives into it only to get 12 cents to the dollar for each purchase.  Okay, maybe I lied, that does bother me quite a bit.  The thing that really gets me, though, is buying a song which at one instance of time is out and about in the netherworld of the interweb and the next instant, after a minute of downloading and readjusting itself to its new foreign environment, resides in my iTunes library.  I don't ever pick up the CD in my hand and hear the cellophane crinkle.  I can't break open the annoying sticker on the case and pull the CD out for its first breath of life.  I can't pull out the album liner and pore over every detail of artwork, pictures, and (hopefully) lyrics.   No color.  No life.  Just another transaction across ethernet cables.

iTunes is convenient and fast and really great for those amazing songs on less-than-stellar albums.  Also, iTunes gift cards seem to be popular gifts, which I refuse to complain about.  If you give me one, it'll take me three months to use it, not because I don't like anything, but because I'll be straining over the decision of what to get.  This is where I feel the most torn.  I have a convenient amount of money in my account, which will purchase me an album that I've been looking at for a long time.  Why haven't I bought it yet?  It's not that I don't want it, and I don't really have much else I'm even considering buying, but the fact that I don't get to  hold it in my hands and possess the CD, which is really dumb since the only time I use the CD's is to import them into iTunes and in my car, makes me hesitate to buy it.  It's all about the music, though, right?  That's what I tell myself, and I'd really like to believe it, but it's not completely true.  That's what I get for being a visual person.  Maybe this is why the idea of records intrigues me; a giant piece of machinery devoted only to playing music, which comes in the form of an enormous disc with an equally large casing and cover artwork, would absolutely complete the aesthetic experience for me.  No, I'm not a hipster.  I just think it would be really cool.

I think I was born in the wrong decade.