I'm Rubber, You're Glue

I recently read 'the Happiness Project' by Gretchen Rubin, this book follows Gretchen on her one year mission to become happier. It was a pretty good read and I would certainly recommend it if you're looking for some light hearted reading. One part of the book really tweaked my interest, the part on gossip.

Gossip is something that everybody struggles with, certainly every girl. It just seems to be in our nature to talk about others and things we have heard about them and to share our opinions on things. And as innocent and fun as gossip may seem, we still shouldn't do it. 

In 'the Happiness Project' it talks about a phenomenon called "spontaneous trait transference", what that means is that people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to others. So basically if I say to someone that someone else is rude, they subconsciously associate that quality with me. Not good, right? It puts a whole new meaning to "judge not lest ye be judged". 

Luckily, spontaneous trait transference also works with positive qualities. Which means that if I say that someone is very kind, that trait is then associated with me. So the next time you are about to gossip about someone, think twice and maybe try to find some kinder words to say instead. And if you have nothing nice to say, it's probably better to say nothing at all. 

"Greater love hath no man than this,"

John 15:13 is probably one of my favorite verses in the Bible: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends". It is quite a short verse but it has so much sentiment to it, and to actually live it out is such a challenge.

I used to think that this verse simply meant that if you truly loved someone you were willing to die for them. That seemed pretty doable to me, if someone I loved was held at gunpoint and I was offered the choice to die in their place I would most certainly take it. But that's not what this verse is about. A couple weeks ago I was reading a daily devotional, from Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest", and it spoke to this verse, it said that it is far easier to die than to lay down your life for someone day in and day out. Death is easy, one second you are here and the next you aren't. But to live everyday in sacrifice for your friends, that's hard.

Certainly it is easy to lay down your life for your friends every now and then. I have most certainly gone through phases where I try to do my very best to serve others and put them before myself. Usually these phases coincide with situation in which I am there with the very purpose to serve others: helping out at a church function, on a missions trip, during a retreat. But to lay down your life, everyday, 24/7, for others is a big challenge.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux lived in France in the 19th century, she was fifteen when she became a nun and sadly she passed away from tuberculosis when she was only twenty-four. Yet in her short time here on earth she did enough to merit being sainted. She never did anything particularly outstanding or performed any great deeds, she barely even left the area she was born in except once when she travelled to Rome to meet the pope, but the thing that made Thérèse worthy of sainthood is that she lived her life trying to show love to everyone, everyday. "Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? The only way I can prove my love is by every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

Not only are we to lay our lives down for each other and to everyday live out lives of love, but we are also to lay down our lives for God and serve Him. What makes this even more challenging is that we ought not expect recognition or praise for this, often loving sacrifices go unnoticed. A song that really helps me when I'm struggling with laying my life down for others is "Desert Song" by Brooke Fraser, when I feel like I've given everything I can and I just have nothing left to give and I just can't be as loving as I should I remember that "I'm filled to be emptied again. The seed I've received I will sow". God had poured so much love into me and all I have to do is share that love with others, even if they don't recognize it, God sees it and that's what counts.

Father's Day

My Papa has been such a blessing to me since day one and I am truly thankful for him, not only on this day but everyday.

Come Fly With Me

To say the least, I am no stranger to flying. Ever since I was fairly young my family has been making trips across the Atlantic and around Europe and I feel very blessed to have been able to travel as much as I have. Sadly, when I was younger I had problems with motion sickness, lets just say that I have swallowed my fair share of Gravol over the years and that you probably would have preferred to not sit near me in an airplane.

Over the past few years my flights to and from Canada have become more frequent, as I attended school in Canada while my immediate family still lived in Amsterdam. During these flights I became better and better at flying. My mother seems to think the reason for that is that I took too much Gravol and knocked myself out, but I promise you I took the exact dosage that was on the bottle. Anyway, I am now able to comfortably make the ten hour flight without getting sick and I even eat the food and enjoy the entertainment system.

However there is still one aspect of flying I strongly dislike: the toilets. I try to avoid using them at all costs (how people bring themselves to join the mile-high club in there is beyond me). Fist of all there is always a lineup which is frustrating and once it is your turn you step into this tiny little space with the worst lighting ever, somehow it seems like everything is wet, but you pull yourself together and do what you need to do and then comes the worst part of all, the flush. No words can describe my dislike for airplane toilets flushing. If you have never been to the toilet on a plane let me try to explain to you what it sounds like, it is so incredibly loud that it sounds like you may actually be sucked into a parallel universe, you can't help but feel bad for the people with seats near the toilets who have to hear this awful sound throughout the flight. I so desperately try to avoid having to be in the room when it flushes that I often will push the button and then try to get out and close the door behind me before it actually flushes.

The other day I was browsing through "The Book Of Even More Awesome" by Neil Pasricha, which consists of a bunch of little chapters on things in life that are awesome and really enjoyable, and to my disbelief, airplane toilets were mentioned in this book. Someone actually enjoys them!!! Oh well, I guess we all have little things that we enjoy and others don't. All I can say is I'm pleased I now actually enjoy flying, and if the toilets are the worst part about it, I can deal with that.

Nipped 'n Tucked

In my life I have been fortunate enough to have only made three visits to the hospital for my own sake. I wasn't even born in one! Two of the three times I went in were to get my wisdom teeth removed, they took out one each time and I was wide awake whilst they did so. The third time I went to the hospital I was about fourteen years old and it was for plastic surgery. Yes, I admit that I have had plastic surgery. Now before you think too long and hard about it let me assure you, I haven't had anything sucked out of me, I haven't been injected with anything and certainly nothing has been made any bigger. I had what is known as a blepharoplasty.

So what is a blepharoplasty? It is a surgery that is usually preformed on older women who want to look more rested and alert. Basically it is an operation during which they remove part of the skin on your eyelids so that your eyes appear wider and more awake. However when I had it done I only had it done on my left eye, now why on earth would I do such a thing? Well, I was born with a congenital birthmark on my left eyelid, and it never bothered me at all nor did it affect my vision at all, but with all congenital birthmarks there is a risk that they will develop into a malanoma, which is a form of skin cancer. Long story short, together with my parents, I decided I'd rather be safe than sorry and just have it removed.

The surgery went fine and I was in and out in no more than two hours. Now since I myself have had plastic surgery I can't be entirely opposed to it, and I am certainly not opposed to all plastic surgery. In many cases plastic surgery is a true blessing to people, burn victims to name just one instance where plastic surgery is verging on miraculous. However I do not agree with the plastic surgery people have to "enhance" themselves. Don't get me wrong, I can get my head around the people who are sick and tired of being stared at or who have never been happy in their own skin. What really confuses me are the men and women who look perfectly fine already and then go and change themselves. The people who become addicted to having plastic surgery and come out looking like scary Barbie dolls. I mean, is it really necessary?

God has made you perfect and loves you just as you are. Plus, outer beauty isn't really what counts anyway, nobody will care how great you look if you are a horrible person. 1 Peter 3:3-4 says the following: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight" (NIV). So be encouraged that true beauty comes from the inside and it will always shine through. Always.

Just call me George

It's no secret that I am a very curious person. Not so much in the sense that I'm strange, although that too is true, but more so in the sense that I like to know just about everything all the time. For those of you who think I'm exaggerating, you can ask anyone of my closest friends and they will tell you that it's a pretty serious problem. Generally I'm fairly informed about what's going on, at most times you could ask me where someone is or what they're doing and I can probably tell you. Creepy, I know. This ceaseless problem of being ever curious is also the root of one of my biggest pet peeves: if a group of people are hanging out together and a couple of people are whispering about something, man oh man, not only does it irk me but I just HAVE to know what they are talking about! I am certainly not proud of this trait of mine and thankfully I have friends who are kind enough to remind me that curiosity can be dangerous too, it did kill the cat after all!

One of the downsides of being curious and always having to be in the loop is that you are very rarely surprised by anything. That is why it is so special when I am caught off guard, and as much as I like knowing what's going on at all times, I absolutely love surprises! Sadly, I am one of those people who usually clues in when a surprise is coming or that somethings up, but sometimes I am blissfully unaware. This past December a good friend of mine was planning a surprise for me and a couple of my friends. All I knew was that we were going somewhere and that I should dress up for the occasion. (On a side note, it is incredibly hard to dress up for an occasion if you don't know what it is. But that's a story for a different time). It was good practice for me to not be too curious and ruin the surprise for myself. I must admit, I did ask a lot of questions and take a lot of guesses as to where we might be headed but when my friend offered to tell me where we were going I decided I didn't want to know, good eh? In the end I was very pleasantly surprised and we all had an amazing night!

All dressed up for our surprise outing ~ we ended up going to see the ballet!

Thank God for friends who know how to catch me off guard and surprise me! And speaking of God, I'm pretty sure He is the king of surprises. Whenever I think I've got figured out where I'm going or what God is up to, something new and exciting hits me from out of the blue and I'm swept off my feet once again. So although I may be more curious than most, I know that God has something up His sleeve and will always leave me pleasantly surprised.

Before we go any further...

..there is something very important you should know about me.

I love music.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved music. There is a photo of me when I'm still a baby, and in this photo I have managed to drag myself across the floor over to the tape/cassette player and am lying right in front of it. My mother tells me that I used to bang on it until someone put music on.

When I got a little older, probably around 7 years old, I really wanted to learn to play the violin. My two older sisters had already had piano lessons and for some reason I was just drawn to the violin, so my parents signed me up. Sadly, after about a year of struggling through lessons the teacher told me that the violin probably wasn't for me, and sadly I had to agree with her. But a few years later I started taking clarinet lessons and I still have my clarinet today! I don't play it often, but on rare occasions I will still play a tune or two. And a couple years ago my parents bought me a ukulele which I am very slowly trying to teach myself. Now despite my great love for music, this does not necessarily mean that I have a talent for it. I am not particularly gifted at playing any instrument and, although I can sing, I can't harmonize to save my life, but that's okay.

More than playing music I love listening to music. To many of my friends I am known for always having music playing and always having a song stuck in my head. When I listen to music, I am very aware of the lyrics. I feel like music is so incredibly good at portraying emotions that could otherwise not be put into words. I tend to go through phases where I listen to one particular song more than others, sometimes to the annoyance of my roommate but luckily she forgives me. The reason is that whenever I'm going through something, or find myself in a situation, or am in a certain mood,  I try to find a song that reflects how I'm feeling or that has a better way of explaining what I'm feeling than I could ever come up with myself. However, this doesn't mean that whenever I am listening to music it is a reflection of how I feel, there are lots of times where I listen to music just for the sake of listening to music!

So this is a fair warning to you: if you should see postings of lyrics or excerpts from songs on my blog, do not be surprised. It is just one of the ways I share how I'm feeling, or it could just be that I want to share a great song with you.

Home

 In my life I have had many homes, after all that is part of the fun of being a missionary kid. My parents are both North American, (however my dad was raised in Brazil,) as for me, I was born and raised in Amsterdam. Within Amsterdam we moved around several times and I always tried to find my place in my new surroundings: new friends, new school, new activities, and so on. It is funny being a third-culture kid because you never quite feel like you belong. Because my parents are North American I was raised at home with primarily North American values. However, going to a Dutch school and living in Dutch culture instilled some Dutch values in me. That in combination with going to a very multi-cultural Church and having friends from various cultures meant that I had a little bit of everything and was never fully something.

 Living in the Netherlands people could always tell that I wasn't fully Dutch and when I moved to Canada at the age of 17 it was quite clear that I was not fully Canadian either.  People are, and probably always will be, able to tell that I don't quite belong, either by the language I use or the way I approach a situation or any other thing that might not fully match the cultural setting I find myself in. 

 Strangely enough, I quite enjoy not fitting into any one culture here on earth. I'm pretty comfortable not feeling entirely at home in Holland and not feeling entirely at home in Canada either.  The reason is, I know that any place on earth really isn't my home. As I was once again reminded in Church today, as Christians we don't actually belong on earth anymore. Our true home is in Heaven with our Heavenly Father. And one day, when my time has come, God will finally call me home to where I belong. 

Amsterdam

...will always have part of my heart

Children's tv

This summer I have found a job nannying several days a week, I'm really enjoying it and the kids are a lot of fun. Today the kids were watching a video and it got me thinking about just how far children's TV has come in the past few decades. I mean, when I was little I watched the classic Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera productions (like scooby doo, the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, the Jetsons, etc). And if I was going to watch something really cool, like "real" animation, I would watch Postman Pat or Wallace and Gromit. One of my all time favorites was the Thunderbirds, I had a Thunderbirds toothbrush and everything. Now for those of you who don't know, Thunderbirds was far from high-tech; made in the 1960, the series follows a bunch of puppets hung by strings, strings that were quite visible even on TV but I didn't care, I just enjoyed the stories.

Today some of the shows kids watch are truly high-tech. Take studios like Pixar, for example, they have taken everything to the next level. I certainly love pixar and their movies, but to be honest I do sometimes miss the old Disney movies where not everything was digital and things looked more like cartoons. And I must admit that I am not really a fan of 3D movies. I know, it's shocking that anyone could dislike 3D movies, I'm not saying I don't like them necessarily, it's just that I would be very happy to settle for a 2D movie instead, even if that does mean missing out on the coveted 3D glasses.

 I wonder what's next for the world of children's television, I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the not too distant future kids can virtually join their favorite TV heroes for some adventures by wearing a special head-piece or something like that. I'll just have to see what kinds of things technology will have come up with when I start having kids of my own.