1.26.2009

Heart-warming story, especially for teachers!

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy20with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.


Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. 'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

''Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it.'

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.'

Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.'

'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary'

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

1.19.2009

Getting Stupified and Down with the Sickness!

Friday night I went to The Rave/Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee with my brother in laws Caleb and Ethan and a friend of Caleb's and the guy's girlfriend and we saw Skindred and Disturbed. We had a lot of fun! Josh didn't go because it was like $40 a ticket and he said he could think of better ways to get a headache with $40 plus he's not really into going to concerts (probably the only thing my ex was good for, lol...) - instead he went over to one of his co-worker's and played Halo all night, which I guess we're doing next week, as they do this every Friday night - it's social interaction so I'm all for it, plus Sarah sounds thrilled to have another girl joining! hehe

Anyways... parking up there sucked because not only were Disturbed and Skindred playing, but Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (whoever they are - the emo kids seem to like em) was playing in the underground so there was twice the crowd. Once we got parked and in Skindred was halfway thru their set, which was good - I havent seen them since they played Wing Ding like 5 years ago. We got near the front during the set change and the crowd went crazy when Drowning Pool's "Bodies" came on the sound system, which was pretty amusing!

Also, security sucked - Caleb forgot he had his switchblade in his pocket, which fyi, all my brother in laws carry knives on them (don't ask! lol). Well security there don't frisk as well as they do in Chicago or at Wing Ding - it was like pat arms, pat sides, okay you're good! Caleb's friend and the guy's girlfriend had to go in the will call line to get their tickets and walked right past the frisking people and then right past the guys scanning and tearing the tickets! LOL...

But omg! Concert first for me - I got knocked over in the crowd. For some reason the crowd started shoving each and every way, which im used to at these shows, but we got stuck in the middle when it started crushing inward and down i went with a bunch of other people! It sucked too cuz I couldn't get up - I was on the floor and people were ontop of my legs, rendering them useless, so I was basically hanging onto whoever I could to keep from going under. I saw Caleb's red wristband so I grabbed onto him with both hands and told him to pull me up, which was all we could do since I still had people down on my legs. When we all went down, the people on the outskirts of it were bracing themselves up so more wouldn't fall ontop of us. It was a bit scary! We decided to move back a little bit and stayed on the back and side of the mosh pit, lol...

Disturbed came out and it was fun - Dave Draiman was escorted onto the stage in straight jacket and a Hannibal Lector type mask, which he tore off when the song started ("Perfect Insanity"). They did "Voices" "Stupify" "The Game" "Stricken" "Liberate" "Land of Confusion" "Deify" "Industructible" "Prayer" "Remember" "Just Stop" and a few others while playing "Inside the Fire" and "The Sickness" for an encore. The only 'big' songs they didn't play were "Guarded" and "10 Thousand Fists."

I had fun and have the bruises to show it, although I must admit - their hometown Chicago crowd rocks a lot harder than Milwaukee! Unfortunately, for this warm up tour (Music as a Weapon 4 is this summer), they're not actually playing Chicago, which is odd! Last time I saw Disturbed was beginning of '05 - it was the first show with their new bassist and they debuted 2 new songs - "Hell" and "Monster."

Ethan also had girl try to pick him up too - it was funny! She was smashed next to him for most of Disturbed and apologized to him afterwards if it seemed creepy, which we all understood as everyone was smashed against each other, and then asked if he had a girlfriend and if she could have his number - he was like "aren't you with that guy over there?" and she was like "oh that's just my best friend..." i was sooo about to be like "i said that for 9 years and then married my best friend" it was funny cuz she was the 'type' that Ethan had just discussed not wanting to date like days beforehand too, lol...

Static-X has a new album coming out in March and will be touring later this year - I think I found new concert going peeps so Josh doesn't have to suffer going to them with me, lol...

1.09.2009

Another blast from the past!

While typing up the Totally Minnie post, I also came across this gem on YouTube!


Watching all 9 parts is about an hour long - but who can forget this one! Shelley Duvall, ZZ Top, Katey Segal (bonus clip), Debbie Harry, Howie Mandel, Cyndi Lauper, Bobby Brown, Little Richard, The Stray Cats and more!

Talk about a trip down memory lane tonight!

Totally Minnie

I can't believe I found this (well okay, I can since you can pretty much find anything on da interwebz these days). When I was real little we used to record shows and specials off TV onto a VHS tape I had, but unfortunately *someone* taped over it and I was a sad little kid for awhile cuz some of these specials never aired again! It had some Ducktales special, a live action Peter Pan special, Jim Henson's The Christmas Toy (which I got for Christmas on DVD this year! woot!), and this Minnie Mouse Special.

It's been bugging me all week what this show was, cuz I heard "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters and had flashbacks to the clip of Fantasia with the hippos and the alligators dancing cuz it's part of a music video they put in this Minnie Special, as is "Don't Go Breaking my Heart" which gets turned into a cute duet between Elton John and Minnie Mouse (a la "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" style with the live action and animation together).

The show is called Totally Minnie and it aired in like the mid-late 80s (I was probably at least 3, so '87 at the earliest) and stars Suzanne Sommers and Robert Caradine (Robert Caradine's brother, who played the dad on Lizzie Maguire - the Disney show Hilary Duff got her big break on). Gotta love the 80s clothes and music! And the Bruce Willis/Cybil Shepard comments are pretty amusing too since that was sooooo long ago! It's got some classic Disney clips spliced in too, including one of Walt Disney and Donald Duck.

I'm only posting the few that I had memories of when I heard the Pointer Sisters and Elton John on the radio this week, but I'd suggest if you got 20-30 min watching all 14 videos (the last few combined are about 15 min while the ones before are only 2-3 min each) starting with the opening and closing with part 13 (if you follow the Youtube sequence on the left of the video screen, posted by lizzym3).

Enjoy!

Part 9: Elton John & Minnie Mouse "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"


Part 13: Pointer Sisters "I'm So Excited" and closing credits

1.07.2009

Thoughts on Sunday's sermon

Sitting church this past Sunday, the pastor spoke on Joshua 7, as he's doing a series on the book of Joshua.

In this chapter, we read about Achan's sin, which is supposed to teach us that our "secret" sins can have an effect on others, even if they don't know what we did.

Joshua had sent spies from Jericho to check out Ai, but while there, they got ambushed and lost some troops. When Joshua questions God as to why this happened, he learns that some of the Israelites have stolen goods and lied about it and need to remove the culprit in order to have God on their side in battle. So the next day, Joshua calls everyone by their tribe to question them. Achan confesses that he stole some valuables and money from the plunder and buried them under his tent. The men brought the stolen items, along with Achan's sons and daughters, livestock, tent and everything he had with him. They then proceeded to stone Achan and the rest, and burned them, placing rocks on top and it now known as the Valley of Achor.

Here's what I don't get - why did the Israelites feel the need to commit murder? Achan confessed and needed to be punished, but why couldn't God have just struck him down dead? Why kill of the rest of the family because their dad was stupid? I mean in Genesis, when leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife turned around and looked back and God turned her into a pillar of salt, but the rest of them didn't get punished for it. Why did the Israelites have to kill them? And they all partook in it, from how it sounds. Is it okay to justify the stoning because Achan stole and needed to be punished?

Josh equated that it's kinda like the death penalty - criminals being put to death for their crimes - which I agree is necessary for those who commit really heinous crimes. But still...

Just my thoughts on the sermon - insight would be helpful!