It's Naaaaatural!

My life is such a peaceful mess right now. Or maybe a stagnant mess. I'm not sure I can differentiate between the two yet. What to do with my life, what to do. I think I wont think about it today and read a book while curled under my Snuggie.

I've been thinking a lot about nature. I don't actually think about it, really. I usually just observe its beauty and its ugliness. I feel like no one talks about how ugly nature can be. Ants devouring a live animal 100 times their size is not pretty, to me.

I was also thinking about how humans fit into nature. I feel like we have made it our mission to cut ourselves off from all of nature. Its like we don't live in it anymore. Most animals make their homes out of what they find in the forest/desert/plain they live in. We have architects and developers build our houses from imported materials and eat things that are kept sanitary by being kept in a sealed wrapper that is disposed of in landfills, never to biodegrade and become part of the earth again, except maybe as an instrument of death.

I think its a marvel how hard humans try to be beautiful. Eagles don't try to be wonderful when they spread their wings to find a fish to snack on. But they are all the same. Forests don't try to be beautiful: they just grow that way. Flowers are clothed by God by growing exactly as they are meant to, with beautiful colors and shapes unique to every flower. Sunrises and sunsets are amazing here in Tucson, but its all in a days work: they're just following the laws of physics, really. But some of us need to make sure we at least have our concealer on to make sure we hide the ugly FLAWS on our faces, make sure our CLOTHES make us look CUTE and STYLISH, make sure our HAIR isn't FLYING EVERYWHERE.

Where do humans fit into this natural cycle? Sometimes I feel like if every human vanished, nature would continue as normal, going through its cycles like a machine. What is the beauty of humanity? I think it is our intellect that sets us apart, our minds that *in theory* care about things other than food, shelter, and the regular mating season that makes the world go 'round. Our intellect, the thing that makes us "in God's image," is what sets us apart.

But human innovation and creativity has done its best to take us away from the thing that birthed us, to become afraid of it, sick from it, both nature and God. I wonder, if we had not fallen, would our natural innovation and creativity have drawn us closer to nature instead, and thereby drawn us closer to God as a result? I can only speculate, but isn't that why we were created? To be close to God and enjoy his creation? Now, to enjoy nature, we must walk on beaten paths made for us, else walk into dangerous and uncharted territory and get lost and die.

I feel like we're synthesizing and sterilizing the things that God created, and it gives me a bad feeling.

It huuuuuurrrrttss!!!

I think the reason I've been feeling so strange lately is that I am experiencing maturity growing pains.

I'm pretty objective about myself, I think. Usually I'm a bit too harsh. So I think I can safely say I am a lot more mature than I was 4 years ago.

I'm feeling really disinterested in Church, my boyfriend, my friends, everything really, but I'm not unhappy. In fact, I'm more content now that I have been in a while. It's a strange paradox to me, and I feel like I should be more worried, but I figure I'm learning something right now that I can't put my finger on, and stressing myself out about it wont do me any good.

I began reading my Bible again a few days ago, and I've realized I'm getting more out of it.

I've been making healthier choices about sleep, and even food (sometimes... I still need to work on this)

I've decided that being drunk is overrated. Buzzed is the happy medium: you're having fun, but not throwing up all over yourself, and not getting a hangover the next morning. Sounds like a plan.

I feel more free to be myself, and to think for myself, than I ever have before. I'm trying to look at everything more objectively lately: my faith, my motives, my work habits, everything really. Its actually very liberating. I used to think that I'd feel better if I just buried my disagreements with people, but I'm finding, gradually, that if you can get out your disagreements in a civil manner, even if the other person isn't being nice, it actually feels better to get it out.

Finding my voice is so hard. Sometimes I feel like I'm slow, because everyone else has the words to say and they say them right when the words need saying. I like to think before I speak, so it takes me longer. I hate being rushed. I think there is good and bad in this.

In fact, I think there is good and bad in every trait of a human's existence. Its just how the world is. Sometimes, the key to liking and loving someone is looking past the bad and seeing the good in them, and working with that and letting the bad pass every once in a while.

I don't know, I'm blabbing right now many things that've been in my head lately. I don't have anything to tie them up with.

I guess I'm thinking too much lately to have a social life. I feel like a hermit, only feeling like sleeping, eating, and reading, and facebooking, and reading blogs. I go to polo practice because I know I'll like it when I get there, I just never feel like leaving the house. Sometimes I get out though, because I make myself.

But I don't think I'm depressed. Maybe I'm just old. I don't know.

mini rant

I think the teaching community needs to kick its addiction to the thesaurus. Kick it like a soccer ball!!!!

Honestly. What the hell does "contextually embedded practices" even mean? I'm reading all these huge words on an assignment about helping ELLs comprehend lectures and assignments better. I love the irony. Except I don't, because my grade depends on sorting all this crap out and BSing a response. I refuse to use their vocabulary. REFUSE!!!