define: desperado

Here’s how I see it:

Living in my parents’ house is like trying to put yourself in front of a wrecking ball in protest because you believe it’ll save something. The truth is that reality will eventually come crashing down, you won’t be able to live an idealogical “free and challenging” lifestyle and you’ll be safely standing on the sidelines (comfortable in your parents’ overstuffed chair watching Tivo) because history has taught us that you’ve got to find the loopholes that let you take the keys out of the machine. So you’ve got to avoid it, it being the stereotypical response. Now, this is indented and bold not because it’s a quote but because this is the important part. This is the part that you textbook people need to highlight, underline, copy down and memorize: If the solution is to do the opposite of everyone else in the world (who typically jolt down noteworthy quotes on pictures of photobooths in photobucket to stick on their photostream so everyone can reblog and/or copy it) then the opposite means that you tattoo those noteworthy quotes somewhere more memorable. The solution is to stop thinking about it and put yourself on the opposite side of the paradigm shift that everyone keeps writing about. Be the images and live the quotes that everyone watches from the safe side of their computer screen. Get the Hell Out of Dodge.

Step one for me comes with moving out of my parents house. I’m no trust fund baby, they haven’t given me a car or a endless credit limit, but by golly I can’t keep injecting myself with cushy beds and recorded TV shows to satisfy my mirror neurons – I’m not going to let the world do the dirty work for me. I wish I knew what the hell I was talking about or how it was going to happen, but I’m not very useful when it comes to things like this. I’m going to turn in my last news article and then I’m switching to paper and ball-point pen. The survival instinct has been laying dormant, which means I’m going to make a lot of stupid mistakes and occasionally I might not eat because I’m not quite ace when it comes to balancing money.

The thing about most of this is that it isn’t new to anyone. This isn’t some adventure that I suddenly came to on my own. For many generations before and after me, kids move out of their parents home. They cut the symbolic umbilical cord and get on with their own life. what makes me any different, any more or less significant? On the limb of being egotistical: there’s something different about this one this Emily girl. There isn’t anything “normal” about her life or what she’ll end up doing it. This move is the prelude to something big. This has been reinforced by good friends, advisers, mentors and my parents for awhile. It’s most likely why I get so peeved when my mom informs me that I’m “right on track” with where I’m suppose to be in life. Who cares about the right track?

Another thing that mom pointed out was about how the quality of life improves when you’re not the main star of it, when you let the Good Man upstairs take center stage. I’m going to be an extra. I’m going to be an extra who moves out of the comfortable place and puts herself in a position (without a car, reliable source of income, house, etc.) where she can’t help but rely on the Main Character to provide and save the day.

I hate blogging about religion because there are so many people out there who do it poorly, who turn it into a preachy spiritual experience. Basically I’m tired of being in a place where my God is useless because I’ve disabled Him by taking care of myself and prevented Him from providing for me. I’ve talked about my faith and now I’m going to go out and live on it.

So what’s the game plan for this? I’m still a college student, with commitments (mostly graduation… okay, entirely graduation) that require me to stay relatively dependent on a couple of systems… but I believe that there is a lot of behavior that happens on campus that influences the way that I’ll be living my life on the outside, in the real world. Being in a small town with a whole bunch of people who you may or may not like is the perfect opportunity to learn to love people in all cases. I’ve tried a little of that last semester, and it sucked and was kinda hard and unpleasant, but why not keep it up?

I apologize to my mother for all the language. More to come. Somebody keep me accountable to this.

(p.s. the definition for “desperado” as provided by google search engine is: “a bold outlaw (especially on the American frontier) “)

A change of secenery, a change of blog.

Eventually I’ll start getting to work and will do some more packing. Tomorrow, I leave for North Carolina, with my best friend and a bunch of boxes in tow. It won’t shock anyone for me announce that I’m taking off again. To continue my pattern of moving every three months, I will be headed back to Washington DC for an internship in January, working with a great political leader training organization. I’m excited about the possibilities and what impact this will have on my future. I’ll be taking a class over the semester as well as several over the summer and will still be graduating on time.

Due to some recent self-discovery conversations that I’ve had with housemates, friends, and counselors, I have started another blog. While RHTO has been more of a travel journal, as well as my own little soap box for whatever comes up to be spouted, my new blog (which will be linked to eventually) focuses on the development of a woman in the 21st century. I’m still working out kinks, and mostly using it as a place to exercise my writing ability, it’s where I go when being influenced by my Frank Santra radio, or to flee when faced with degrading media depictions of women that are frequently thrown at 20-young women, such as myself.
Some of the particular standards that I want to address is the image that is promoted through popular media that a woman reigns her power in the influence she has over the opposite sex by means of exploiting her sexuality, big lips, and sultry behavior (a solid example can be observed adopting children from all over the globe, into her family which was conceived over an affair. I’m just saying.) which, in my own opinion, has forced back any progress women made to promote their ability to be independent, smart, witty, and accomplished individuals.
In a sense, I want to reevaluate the standard definition of feminism, but more so to what it means to be feminine. While some women cling to the idea that it is their right to exploit their sexuality by means of sleeping with the boss, dominating the single bars, or resorting to prostitution, I will use my authority as a woman to call (pardon my french, Mom, Grandma) bullshit when I see it, especially in the corporate or political spotlight – both areas that I plan on being involved and thriving in. The standard expectation for women in those arenas should by higher than what the media has been allowed to lower it to (with the silent permission of women).

Becoming twenty made me more excited to focus less on college and more on what it means to start playing my role as a woman in the world. The standards that I’ve been introduced to so far have left a lot to be desired and that is what I am modifying. I’ll send the link around once I’ve got a better handle on what I’m doing.

Addictive Behavior: Abortions.

Through the past couple of months I have been keeping a running list of book marks of articles or topics that I wanted to blog about, to give more substance to the blog.

A week ago or so I came across a couple of journal articles that were about a woman who had 15 abortions in 16 years.

I promise that this won’t be a staunch pro-life post, but rather I want to look at the type of behavior and addiction that she describes in the article.

Irene Vilar, 40, had the abortions between the ages of 16 and her early thirties. She writes about her experiences in her book Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict (which was rejected 50 times before being published). She had the abortions during a rough time in her life, and she reportedly attempted to kill herself as well. Her mother committed suicide when Vilar was a young age, and two of her brothers were heroin addicts.

An interesting part of the article:

She said her first husband, an older man, had believed children killed sexual desire and she had rebelled by not using birth control. Then she would fear losing her husband and opt for a termination.

Those are implications of a very unhealthy marriage. She would defy her husband and decide to get pregnant, but then terminated her child when she became fearful of losing her husband. With an already unstable background, and can imagine how it wasn’t difficult to make the transition into this struggle for control. She ultimately couldn’t control her husband’s desire to have children, but she gained control when she made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

In the brutally frank memoir she writes: “My story is a perversion of both maternal desire and abortion, framed by a lawful procedure that I abused.

This statement is evidence of a lot of things that I worry about when it comes to my peers and the sexual decisions that they make. A lot of pro-abortionists will discuss dire situations that women are put into (much worse than your husbands waning sexual desire) and that abortion shouldn’t be cut off to them – but a problem arises when we eliminate all forms of descretion when it comes to abortion. Beside the fact that this woman did have a problem with becoming pregnant to eliminate the history, that is the outward expression of inward issues that she had from growing up in a broken home.

“By the time I lay in an abortion clinic waiting for the procedure to begin, I would feel nothing but disgust and shame. When I left the clinic, I felt a calm respite, surrender. I always said to myself then ‘This has to end.’

This almost gives a binging and purging aspect to the abortion progress — with any addiction it is difficult to break the cycle of continued shame and guilt.

“A moment came when not being pregnant was enough motivation for wanting to be pregnant. Getting pregnant began to be simply a habit.

“If I wasn’t pregnant, something was wrong, more wrong than what was already wrong. I believe this habit formed with abortion number 9 and pregnancy number 10.”

This women was in deep need of help on a deeper level than just her “morally wrong” decisions to terminate 15 pregnancies. Did the pro-choice system hurt her more than help because no one would stand in the way to investigate further into her decision to have an abortion?

Edit:
I just came across an old email that linked to a multi-media story of a couple who carried their son who had a genetic disease… Just watch it. Choosing Thomas.

Production from a day of SICK.

I’ve been sick in bed all day, and have high hopes of getting better if I’m able to keep downing the Vitamin-C chewables and keep my hydration levels up… which I haven’t been (sorry, Mom.)

My first thought was to make a blog post of “How to Survive a Cold While in College” (and if you landed here because of those search terms, let me give you this: Eat chicken soup, keep Sprite/Sierra Mist and Saltine crackers handy, put your mother on speed dial and find a good blog to read in a dimly lit room).

I came across this woman who hated Tim Ferris (I mentioned him a couple of blogs back) and I started reading her blog to get a sense of who she was. Well, Penelope had 1. some great perspective on who Tim Ferris is/the interactions he has with people which made him seem a bit more human to me, and 2. A great blog on 5 Steps to Taming Materialism (from an Accidental Expert). What I enjoyed most about that particular post was in the latter points, she says:

People often ask me how was I able to switch careers so many times (professional volleyball, corporate marketing, entrepreneurship…) And how have I been able to do so many high risk things (for example take a 70% pay cut and start new as a freelance writer when I had my first baby and was supporting the family.) The answer is that I had very little to lose.

It’s a cliché for a reason. If you have a very low-cost lifestyle and very few physical things that you treasure, you cannot really imagine a rug being pulled out from under you because you don’t own that great a rug anyway.

People think that what’s holding them back from taking risk is some big financial idea of stability and well being, but it’s really fear of losing your comfortable material life, whatever that is. Mine is so spare that I can easily replace it, even if we got bed bugs again.

Now, there were a couple of things that I learned from that passage, one thing that was stated, another was just a concept that came out of what she said.
First off, being the college girl that I am, I have managed to live in a different “home” (Ranging from city, state, country, dorm, and bedroom) roughly every four months at most, some trips being as short as a week and a half. I would like to say that as I was entering my third year of college I learned how to slim down what I was taking – I learned how to determine the compromisable item vs. the keep-sake which needed to stay at home with the parents. Because of the travel-lifestyle that I want to have when I’m older, it’s almost essential to be able to pack whatever I need in a suitcase and be able to leave. (For awhile that suitcase was my mom’s old vintage blue one from when she went to Japan, but my parents got me a new set upon me leaving for Korea, and I threw sentiment out the window.)

A section from her blog that I didn’t include in the quote above was the books that she and her husband were so guiltily gathering up and weren’t able to read. That was convicting, especially when I thought of all the books that I’ve accumulated and have yet to really get into. I could read a couple of pages a day and get done eventually.. there really isn’t any reason why I should be reading besides the fact that a lot of the books that I read are so pro-active that I don’t know what to do with myself after I read what I’ve read. I hope that growing in my blog-usage will help provide a healthy outlet for that.

The third thought that hit me as I was reading her blog was that this is my career time. I don’t have anything to lose, but I also have nothing to stand on. I roughly have my worldly possessions and maybe a little over $100 to my name, including A stock from AIG. I haven’t lived in my parents house for roughly a year, and although college is paid for – what starts after that? I had to go to the store recently to pick up some bare minimum, and let me tell you, the practice of purchasing groceries teaches you a lot about the weight of money.

Even though I’m on my dead (sick-)bed, reading that really motivated me to get things done. To start writing, start cooking (well, okay in the future, but I can still book mark recipes), to finish the stupid policies and to set up the business meetings that I need to in order to move forward with what’s going on.

I’m thankful that I had this day to sit around and do nothing to motivate me to move forward.

All of the Pages of Time.

How final this statement is.

When I was home briefly at the end of the summer, I was blessed with the chance to spend some time alone in the car with my younger sister Lucy. She had been away from home all summer working at camp, and I had been gone to Arizona and Korea, so it was good to sit down and have some recap time. We both talked about what it was like being homeschooled through high school and Lu shared that she really wish that she had been able to take more advantage of all the schooling opportunities that we had when we were younger, and I could definitely echo the sentiment of feeling like I hadn’t been able to take advantage of everything that I could have. Something that also really struck a chord with me was all the different books that would fill my bookcase and how I never managed to read all of them. I keep going home and see all of these books and I want to read all of them as soon as possible. Well, given the fact that I’m a little busy, I still haven’t worked out a realistic plan to work that out.

Today I came across this quote through my tumblr feed:

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. … But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.  – Nick Hornby

What a comfort to know that I am not the only person in the world who grapples with this problem of not having all the time I need to watch the movies that I want to and read the books that I want to. Another truthful quote that I read was “Go after what you want, you don’t have time not to”. It really was convicting to think of how to get that out of the way and just do things! Forget about the fact that you have homework and tests and actually have to pass classes in order to graduate… Okay, for your (my) parents’ sake, seek the balance but don’t forget to make sure that these are fruitful years in investing in parts of yourself that will last long after those cap and gown serimonies.

I have been fortunate enough to be blessed being surrounded by people who love and challenge me (see how those two are wedded together there?) who keep making me get better, which is great because after they’re gone, I still have to live with myself. I really try to make myself impressionable enough that I can still find traces of them in myself when they aren’t around anymore.

If you haven’t heard it yet – listen to Derek Webb’s “Wedding Dress”. It’s my new favorite on Last.fm, and definitely worth listening to when you’re in a confrontational stage of your walk. Another short pop culture update: I saw the leaked trailer for Toy Story 3 and it looks so cute! I’m glad that this looks like it’s really going to be decent. They’re doing it right.

My Mission

While this is more personal of a post that I’d EVER imagine posting up on here – I am here to take a stand on the importance of transparency. Rather than throwing stones at other people who aren’t able to be honest, I need to become more aware of the glass house I’ve build around myself in the first place.

Last year I was challenged by a good friend when he asked me what my mission was. Not quite understanding what he was talking about, chalking it up to his subconscious James Bond persona, he had to explain to me that his mission was how he bounced off everything that he was doing in his life.

I can see the importance that can be reaped from this challenge for college students – especially Taylor University students who are thrown into the pool of our scholastic career and are surrounded by the sharks of community organizations and different clubs to join in. We all think that we’re living out our commission to be students because we’re serving ourselves to death.

I had to learn the hard way these past two years that (1) I’m not doing anyone any favors by serving myself to death, (2) it is extremely wasteful of me to throw upwards of $33k a year in bad grades because I was too committed to the wrong things.

So, as I go through this process I also challenge you, dear readers, young and old (that’s you, uncle.) to determine what is it that you want to do with this wisp of your life that you’ve got left? It was a sad day when I had to realize that I had to give up countless, useless hobbies like knitting.

To compose your mission – there’s a couple of variables that you need to figure out first.
Step one: What is your greatest attribute? What is something so uniquely you that whenever anyone sees you, they automatically say something to the degree of “there’s _____. They’re the go to person if you need teaching/programming/information.” For me, it’s become a well known fact on campus that Emily Moore knows everyone. It’s almost laughable to look at some of the emails I get asking if I know xyz person involved with whatever. Combining that with my constant desire to read more news, more books, have more discussions, my over all dominating feature is that I desire to know, whether that’s people, things, or stories.

Step two: What, in your eyes, is the greatest need in the world? Do starving populations hit you in that soft spot? The lack of clean water in some developing countries? Now, don’t be driven by guilt to pick something like this. If you aren’t passion for it, restless in frustration over it, then you’re doing a disservice by saying yes to those. Do you want to seek to build up better communication structures? Do you think that the educational system needs revamping? Find what your “button” issue is, and then narrow it down to one word. For me, I get pissed over the fact that there are children that aren’t cherished, that don’t think that love should be a stable of their lives. That’s the tip of the iceberg, but essentially, I desire to confront those lies with truth, both in their lives and the lives of other people I interact with… like you, dear readers.

Step 3: Throw those words together. For me, my bottom line is Knowing Truth. That means that whatever I end up investing my time and energy into needs to be accomplishing that, needs to be spreading the Knowledge of TRUTH in the lives of either myself, my housemates or others.

Now, look at your schedule and cut out commitments where you can. This meant that I had to drop the TESOL program and I had to leave a focus group. Both things I were excited for, but they were both more time consuming than they were directing me in what I need to do with my life. Sorry, TESOL and focus group.

My priorities dance around between:
- my commitment to God
- my commitment to my family (who I miss A LOT.)
- my friendships on campus
- my school work
- my writing accomplishments
- my non-profit work.

Mission:
My mission is to spend this time of my life growing in my knowledge, my writing skills, and to build Uganda Calling into a sustainable organization. I will reevaluate my commitment to each during the weekend and determine which areas will have to be completed on a lower level. I will meet with a mentor on campus, I will be accountable to my writing partner (the wonderful Carrie), and I will make sure to get all… B’s in my classes. This is all in a process to allow me to be in a position to graduate into a career as a self-sufficient freelance writer, as well as the Executive of one non-profit (Uganda Calling) while developing another (to be determined).

What are your two words? Doesn’t it stuck to have to narrow down your commitments? What are you going to be doing this week to pull yourself closer to what will cause you to believe you’ve made a mark on the history of this world?

Till Thursday… ESM

Sowing a character…

Thanks to the lovely Carrie, I’ve been challenged to update this blog three times a week. For the rest of my life. Here is your first post in this challenge.

A friend on facebook linked to this interesting article on singleness, from the perspective of a married woman, “on the other side of singleness” as she puts it. This quote has stuck with me:

Singleness is about adventure, self-esteem and growing up. And it’s about you owning your soul, until it’s time to give it away to the one who gives it back to you, with theirs. Here’s my word of wisdom from the other side of singleness: It’s who you are when you’re single that sets the course for who you’ll be all your life. Be whole, and yes, holy—don’t give yourself away. You’ll miss the pieces you let go.

Emphasis mine.

This quote sums up how I feel about marriage right now. I’m at a Christian university that seems to have something in the water when it comes to couples getting in relationships, getting engaged, married and I’ve had some friends start to have children, too. Crazy stuff, man.

Coming from a family with young parents, I’ve always wanted to have my children when I was at a young age so that I could have that fun relationship with my children, too. Much to my mother’s relief, though, I’ve been more and more eager to put off the idea of getting hitched, settling down, blah blah blah.

Getting married scares me, to be honest. This summer when I thought I had run into “the one”, God and I have a very serious conversation about how I wasn’t ready to get married, I had too many dreams and plans and things that I wanted to do while I was still single. I want my future husband to be involved with missions and all of that good stuff, but I don’t want to have to divide my heart when it comes to serving the children of Uganda, the children of the urban areas in the States that I want to work in.

I’ve still got some kinks to work out before I want to try figuring out how to live with a member of the opposite sex. I’ve got a busy enough time trying to figure out to live with four other girls, much less myself. All in due time, I know. For the first time in awhile, I’m really comfortable with the idea, too.

Know Thyself.

I woke up at 9:30am, 10:30am, 11am and eventually got out of bed at 2pm. Since then I haven’t done much beyond taking a walk with Abigail, making lunch and reading and filtering through blog articles. While all of this is currently unrelevant, just wait – I’ll tie it in.

Awhile ago while surfing in the blogosphere, I encountered Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week. He is described on Wikipedia as “Productivity Guru” and his blog mostly contain streamlining-your-work tips, and various ways to live your life more effectively.

Throughout the past couple of months I’ve been learning that my time on this Earth is precious and that I’m not going to be able to read everything that I want to read, I’m not going to be able to pick up all the hobbies I wish I could be good at (goodbye knitting, cross stitching, and salsa dancing) and that even though I’ll encounter a lot of great worth-while organizations and opportunities in my life, I’m doing everyone and myself a favor each time that I’m able to say “no.”

Okay, back to Ferriss. The topics that he addresses are great expansions of how to best use your time, but I can’t handicap myself because I’m not able to throw myself into the type of lifestyle that he designs for himself (and his readers through his blog). I still have his blog listed in my Google Reader, but there are some days when I’m going to surrender to the snooze button, and putting off homework. It’s the art of finding the balance.

This is all a part of the journey of knowing thyself. Recently at a leadership dinner I was at, our hostess shared the quote “To know yourself, you must know God. You must know God to know yourself.” There are many different ways to be able to clog yourself up with fillers that prevent you from crossing that great divide to “know yourself”. It comes in the form of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, CBS, ABC, and any sports show that includes hours of pre- and post-game programming. The other day I was in the living room while the TV was on for three hours. Besides catching bits and parts of Boy Meets World whenever my housemates are home, that is the most consecutive amount of time that I’ve spent in front of the TV and I’m kinda proud of that. It also made me feel like poo, so I’m not likely to do it again any time soon.

So, here are some last applicable tips:
Turn off the tv. Purge your RSS reader and your twitter “following”. Returning half the books that you just took out of the library… or skim through the contents and highlight a chapter or two to read and then return the book. Learn to wake up early.

Time to crack open Confessions. Hope you’re having a great weekend.

p.s. Happy 40th Birthday to my Dad :)

Journaltastic.

Why hello there, World. I’ve been spending the past month: getting used to being back in Upland, IN, after doing my fair share of globe trotting; turning twenty… feels great; feeling myself out in the new Professional Writing Department. A lot of my classes are reading based, which means I’m reading like the fiend I’ve always imagined myself being. So far I’ve gotten through Homer’s Iliad, and am now about half-way through St. Augustine’s Confessions.
With all this time to read, I’ve been given even more space to think. Perhaps it’s that I’m letting the majority of my input coming from books and not other forms of media and it has opened up space in my mind for more thinking. Another factor is that I’ve been controlling what I’ve been taking in a lot more. One of my housemates has the TV on to watch the 2 hour Grey’s Season Premier, and I’m noticing that these commercials are the first form of advertising that I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks, Upland, IN.
This year at school I am Co-Director for Social Justice Week and I’ve been forced into the position to feel the tension between being morally conservative and socially liberal. These two have been floating around my head as I’ve been working through getting ready for this year, planning events for the school, figuring out if/when I can make trips to Washington for events with various organizations.
Over this next school year I’ve got concrete plans to work on a book outline and a professor here has pushed me in the direction of a couple of journals that he thinks my essays could belong in. I’m going to start reading over and analyzing them to see what sort of stories they accept. I never really considered journals as a way to get published, but I think that with the work that I’ve already accomplished that this is a good step in my future career’s direction.

Okay, Grey’s on.

Home again, home again.

Well, I’m up at 5 am. Coming home from Seoul was composed of a 40 hour Tuesday, 27 of those hours were spent going through security for various airports, sitting on planes, and running to different gates. I got home safely to my beautiful family and my bags made it one day later. Thanks for the prayers -things have been going really well.

My first day I was able to wake up at 10 am (thinking, pridefully, that I had defeated the jet-lag beast. Well, here I am, up at 5am) and spent the day doing absolutely nothing. I couldn’t be bothered to do much of any importance besides spending some much needed time catching up with the rents and spending time with my sisters – mostly Lulu, who leaves for college in … tomorrow. Super weird.

After a short nap (that woke me up at 1 am… and here I am) I’ve been spending time organizing stuff for next school year. Junior year. Officially past the halfway mark of my collegiate career. This is a whole new beast, folks. I’m starting a new major (B.S. of Professional Writing) in an awesome off-campus house with some amazing girls (!) and am going to be Co-Director for Social Justice Week. Being in Korea really transformed me and I’m working to make sure that those transformations stick with me into this new year.

So let me back up a bit. I just lived in Korea for seven weeks. I didn’t just “visit”, I didn’t get a “taste” of the culture, I soaked myself in it. I struggled over language barriers, I learned names, I made inside jokes, I got lost for miles and got myself home with no back tracking. I owned Seoul for a short time but my humility would like for me to point out that I only really knew within three subway stops of a massive transit system. But still.

This blog will be more focused on… well, who knows? I’m not consistent with posting, I don’t exactly have a “theme”, but I hope y’all keep reading.

PEACE – emily sara moore