Remember that map of online communities that I loved ? There’s a new and improved version…. *does happy dance* By the way, you can see the larger version on xkcd .

This morning—before my brother was up—my dad and I decided to watch Bride and Prejudice , the Indian (like from India) rendition of my all-time favorite novel by a similar name. And man, am I glad we did! I think the most fascinating part of this movie was all the color . Every woman in the movie wore a brightly -colored sari , and of course with costume changes the choice of bright colors changed. The camera shots took advantage of all the color involved, especially during the song-and-dance scenes. Oh yes—this was a musical! Which made it even better (and even less likely to be tolerated by my brother, who fortunately still has not emerged from his room). This was definitely a Bollywood musical; the music was identifiably Indian (think Slumdog Millionaire ) though most of the songs were sung in English. Of course, the names from Austen’s novel had to undergo some changes to become part of the Indian culture, so Elizabeth became Lalita, Jane became Jaya, and so on with all th...

I love maps. I love to hate Facebook. (Or something like that.) So, you can guess how much I love this. From xkcd, where the larger version may be viewed and laughed at . It appears to be slightly out of date (I’d guess that Facebook is a wee bit bigger than it appears on this map), but still entertaining. I happened to see this graphic over my brother’s shoulder a few minutes ago.

How many times have I used that as a post title, I wonder? But anyways--I really am here, just, I've not been posting in the last several days. (Or the last couple weeks, it appears.) I've been busily working on several final projects/papers, plus I went home for Mother's Day this past weekend (and conspired with my sister to royally surprise my mom), and I'm leaving for New York in... five short days. That said, I'll soon have a music video of a Tom Lehrer song up on YouTube. (It's one of those final projects I've been burying myself in.) I finished editing over half of it today, so if all goes well, I'll have it uploaded on Thursday morning. In the meantime, I'll be working on a porfolio that I've had to put off until tonight/tomorrow.... it shouldn't be that big of a deal. And then.... New York! That's for the World Journalism Institute's New York course in backpack journalism , for which I'll spend three weeks in Manh...

When I came home for Easter, I intended to take my lovely old green Schwinn bike back with me. Then, my sister informed me that one of my inner tubes had a pretty good leak in it. So I decided to replace the inner tube, like I did to the other wheel last year, and go on with my life. I've done that before and I was confident I could do it again. This morning, upon pulling out my bike and taking off the back wheel (with the dysfunctional inner tube), I realized that the tires were old. So old and decrepit that there were cracks all over and it had no tread left where the wheel touches the ground. Therefore, I got my mom to go to Wal-Mart with me and get me some new tires too. I was bound and determined to fix my bike, even though I'd never replaced a tire before. I figured, it can't be much harder than replacing an inner tube, and that was pretty easy. But then came a difficult, frustrating, and tear-inducing part. The tire would not go on the rim. I tried for over an...

I just finished watching "An Inconvenient Truth" for a class assignment. Aside from its dated material now (it was released 4 years ago, which is significant when discussing as much scientific data/conclusions as were in the film), it was... eh. I did not really care for the egotistical-feeling introductory sequence where Gore walked on stage amid clapping and cheers (and between footage of his time as a politician), or for the other sequence showing his defeat in the 2000 presidential race. Neither had anything to do with the matter at hand, since he said at the outset that climate change was not a political matter (though he said later that it was, and I'm pretty sure he meant the two statements in different ways, but still). As for the science... well, I just attended a seminar (part of the class for which I watched the movie) in which almost all of it was covered in more depth and with more up-to-date data (which Al Gore can't help, I suppose). I'm not con...

As you may be aware , ever since getting a Facebook account (i.e. succumbing to the pretty permanent fad on campus), I've been alternately amused and frustrated by certain aspects of it. In fact, I was just criticizing its creation of people who have lots of "friends" but few-to-no close, intimate confidantes. I called it "faceless friendship." And now I've finally gotten around to reading "Loneliness in Numbers," an article in the latest Atlantic magazine that points out that the coming-of-age of the Internet and the social media thereof has also brought about (or maybe highlighted) the advent of another phenomenon--loneliness in the midst of connectivity. The author makes some good points. One of my favorite observations: Acquaintances are easy to maintain with casual, group emails and Holiday notes. But real friends? They take time and energy--both to develop, and to nurture or maintain. And the key observation: And the more ... time anyone s...

SIDENOTE: Before I forget, that last post was the 450th! And, we are just three comments away from 700! (Note to the sidenote: I do know that some comments haven't been counted in that tally, for whatever reason--the computer didn't like me or something--but for the sake of consistency I'm going by this number.) Now, for the real content of the blog post. I just found out about two more couples who just got engaged this weekend.... in addition to the couple that got engaged last weekend.... what IS it with junior year ? I wish them all my utmost felicitations (well, usually felicitaciones actually), but seriously! That makes five or six in the last few months.

I got moved into my apartment on campus late this morning... spent an hour or so unpacking before lunch, then got my computer hooked up to the internet and the rest of the stuff unpacked after. Also rearranged the room a bit--my roommate for this time, whom I've never officially met (she remembered that we had a class together a couple years ago), gave me leave via Facebook message to rearrange the beds when I got back. Of course, there's not exactly a lot of space in this room, so I maneuvered the beds into the only other position possible. (I like that arrangement better.) And I'm off to go to work in about fifteen minutes. At which time I will return to my old job at the library ... for more than four hours! I've books and the internet to keep me occupied, of course, but I'm hoping to get some writing done as well. (Journal-writing, that is.) And after having listened to music for the last few hours, I will return to a world of silence and my own thoughts. ...

I've been reading A.W. Tozer again. If you've been reading long enough or paying attention, I love his writing . His book "The Pursuit of God" was wonderful the first time I read through it, and I keep drawing insights from that each time I read it again. However, this book I'm in is a collection of Tozer's 52 best chapters (which still makes for a little paperback, since his chapters are fairly short). I've read this before too. It has excerpts from "Pursuit of God" in addition to ten other books he wrote (I think there are eleven in total, anyway). Thing is, when I read Tozer I have to stop and think a lot, and pray, and read my Bible in the meantime. So I've been on several long bus rides since I started this and I'm still in chapter 11 or something. It amuses me that I started this blog, what, three years ago, with posts about Tozer. But his writing is really something. I recommend "Pursuit of God" especially.

So, remember that sermon about the letter in Revelation to the church in Philadelphia ? My roommate's dad (a pastor) just preached on the same exact passage this past Sunday when I went down to visit her.... How odd is that? In other news... umm... I got to eat at a Chinese buffet today! It was good, but I ate too much. Alas, it seems that every time I go to a restaurant either the serving sizes are too big to start with, or the buffet has too many choices to settle on a decent amount of food....

Working this job kinda drains me, mentally. I feel dumber after these days at work... and thus, can never think of what I meant to write about earlier. At least I'm on eight-hour days, instead of the nine-hours-plus-Saturday that became the last two weeks. All that comes to mind is that I'll be going to the state fair next week, with my sister, for the first time in... three or four years. I think the last time I went was when I was sixteen and drove the longest I've ever driven without my parents. (I still can't believe my parents let me, a sixteen-year-old, drive to the state fair and back, an hour each way. I don't think I've driven alone that far since...) But that was before the advent of this "Pen or Sword?" blog, I believe. Back in the days of "El Cuaderno." Man... I've had this blog name a long time..... three years this coming month. See how random, disassociated, and unorganized my thoughts become after getting home from w...

I kinda got fed up with Facebook last night, finally. It's been coming on for a while now. I read an article a couple months back about Facebook's disturbing side, and the sort of things expressed in the article--a concern about Facebook taking up more of my thoughts and time than Bible study, and the frivolity of most of the website's function--have been my own thoughts on the subject for some time now. Facebook's unique purpose, as I understand it, is to re-initiate contact with long-lost friends or friends who have moved away (or friends who didn't move away with you). And sometimes that works. But what is the main function of Facebook, practically? It's used to keep up with friends you see every other day anyway. And when you're home for the summer--the time in which it ought to serve its greatest purpose, if you intend to stay friends with your college acquaintances--instead of being somewhat useful, it degenerates into a way to waste time (i.e. t...

Hooray for camp! It's coming up this weekend, so I will be away for a few days. Nothing like a little rest, relaxation, and unplugging-time (quite literally; I intend to leave my laptop at home). I intend to do lots of reading, to work with Mom on a Wacky Boat, and to enjoy the little cabin and the lovely lake air. :)

OK. As you may remember , I have a pretty good-sized hat collection. In 2007 the number of hats was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty , including my graduation cap... I think. I'm not exactly sure. Now, it is up to thirty-six. And I'm very sure this time! Well, come to think of it, it ought to be thirty-seven... I didn't include my graduation cap in that tally. (I'm pretty sure it's still around here, somewhere!) A slideshow of the pictures: You'll probably be able to see the pictures better at the source .

If you remember, I sewed a cape over spring break for a friend of mine who turned ten. Bee, my little friend, has many siblings--one of them is her older brother, whose Star Wars interests go beyond all bounds. (He owns six lightsabers.) Now, some months ago--I think it was over Christmas break, maybe--I had promised this little boy a homemade Jedi cloak someday. I knew it would be easy, but I wasn't about to spend Christmas break sewing something like that, for no good reason. So I told him he would have to wait quite awhile. When I gave Bee her blueberry cape, her older brother was jealous, of course. After all, I'd promised him a Jedi cloak long before I'd decided to sew a cape for Bee, and first things should come first! Right? So, his birthday was this month, and I fulfilled my promise as soon as ever I got unpacked from moving back home after my sophomore year at college. I dyed the fabric Tuesday; cut it out Wednesday; sewed it yesterday; and delivered the gif...

I heard the end of a radio broadcast today about the life and work of Paul Harvey , whose radio show "The Rest of the Story" I used to listen to almost every day. Focus on the Family had a two part radio broadcast, which you can access from their podcast feed, here and here . And if you're quick enough, there appear to be several other Web features on the main portion of the radio website. Fascinating. My best memory of Paul Harvey was actually his book, not his radio program... "More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story." I must have read it at least three times, and I don't even know where it is anymore. But I remember many of the stories in it. Several dealt with historical events... one was about an event ten years before Pearl Harbor, during which a U.S. navy something-or-other (I wanna say colonol or corporal, but I don't think that's right) demonstrated the exact weakness of Pearl Harbor that was noticed by the Japanese and explo...

Which, translated, means: I will have a job for the summer! I will be working at the same warehouse I staffed last summer. Though it was not the most desirable job , I liked parts of it well enough to tolerate it for the two months I was there. And again this summer, I will spend about two months, maybe a little more, packing boxes in that warehouse. It pays very well, for a summer job--it's way above minimum wage!--and I'll get a good many hours, I know. And it will pass the time until.... Study abroad, at the end of August! I'll head onto a plane the last week or so, and spend almost four months out of the country. I'll be immersed into a Spanish-speaking culture... and I will most definitely enjoy it. I may miss my family and my friends--I've been assured that I will--but the experience will be one for a lifetime.

1. I really don't mind getting up at five-fifty-five when it means that I get to witness such beautiful things as I saw last week . Or the fog that I saw this morning. 2. I really really wish I had a nicer camera. Or that I could get these things in sharper focus with my current camera. Alas. 3. Tripods fit in a backpack if they are cheap & small enough. 4. Don't rely on your camera battery. Mine died unexpectedly this morning, when I was half a mile away on my bike trying to shoot fog photos. 5. And... computers are quite finicky and uncooperative at the most inconvenient times.

I won another game of poker last night--even though I am absolutely no good at bluffing, and still do not know whether a straight or a flush is better. All I know is, I have amazing luck every time I play the game. My poker-playing friends are jealous of me. To prove how little bluffing ability I have: One friend was able to tell last night that I and another friend really did have good cards, but my hand was better than the other's. (Obviously she, the other player, can't bluff either.) And my friend with the uncanny ability to read my cards without seeing them has known every time I have a hand whether it is good or nothing. But I still win these poker games. I don't even care for the game all that much... certainly not enough to ever play for money (not five bucks or whatever). The fun part though is getting like two flushes in the course of a game (and possibly a three of a kind, I can't remember). And winning the game when one of my two remaining opponents g...