write it down

January 27th, 2012. The day that my favorite artist in the whole world emailed me. His name is Stephen Christian, and he is the lead singer of Anberlin. He has an acoustic side project/band called Anchor & Braille. They do soft folksy acoustic type music that I adore. SO the morning of the 27th, I was on facebook and saw that he had posted that the first five people to email him would be sent a demo song for Anchor & Braille's upcoming album, The Quiet Life. I figured, "why not?" I knew there had probably been a few more than five people that had already emailed him, but I quickly sent him this anyways---


A&B,
I'd love to hear the demo! I was at the Felt album release show in Nashville, and I've been waiting since to hear more! So excited about the new stuff!

Hope all is well.

Rebecca Mullen


Not even a minute after I had emailed him, the post on facebook disappeared (probably to prevent tooo many flooding emails for him). I crossed my fingers and went on to my first class of the day. After class, I grabbed a bagel and sat outside of Einstein's waiting for my english class to start. I then opened my email ohso hopeful that there would be something special in my inbox from the man that I love.
AND GUESS WHAT! THERE WAS AN EMAIL. My heart seriously jumped out of my chest and started racing. His message (read it and weep, below) was followed by an audio file and a photo of him and some bandmates..one of them being Micah Tawlks (another one of my favorite artists).

ok friends, let me explain. a demo is a rough cut of a song as most of you know. so this song is called 'a hymn for her', and it is just me and my out of tune piano. if you listen close you can hear my dog walking around in the background. this is the slowest song on the record, but still one of my favorites. 

hope this finds you well,

stephen

ok amis, laissez-moi vous expliquer. une démo est un rough cut d'une chansoncomme la plupart d'entre vous connaissent. donc cette chanson s'appelle «un hymne pour elle», et il est juste moi et mon piano, hors de ton. si vous écoutez attentivement, vous pouvez entendre mon chien se promener dans l'arrière-plan.cela est le plus lent chanson sur le record, mais encore l'un de mes favoris.

espérons que cela vous trouve bien,

stephen

ok kaibigan, ipaalam sa akin ipaliwanag. Ang demo ay isang magaspang na hiwang isang awit ng karamihan sa inyo alam. kaya ang awit na ito ay tinatawag na 'isang awit para sa kanyang', at ito ay lamang sa akin at sa aking labas ng tunepiano. kung makinig ka isara naririnig mo ang aking aso paglalakad sa paligid sa background. ito ang pinakamabagal na kanta sa the record, ngunit pa rin ay isa ng aking mga paborito.
asa na ito hahanapin mo rin,

stephen

の友人は、私に説明してみましょう。デモでは、多くの人が知っているように、曲の大まかなカットです。ので、この曲は"彼女のために賛美歌"と呼ばれ、そしてそれはちょうど私と曲のピアノの私の外です。あなたが近くに聞けばあなたは私の犬がバックグラウンドで歩き回って聞くことができます。これは記録上最も遅い曲ですが、それでも私のお気に入りの一つ。
、これはあなたによく見つける願って,

stephen

After I read the message, I grabbed my head phones and pressed play. The song is called "A Hymn For Her". It's beautiful, and I think anyone with any type of musical taste would agree to that. As I sat there and listened, it took everything in me not to cry. The crying wasn't because THE Stephen Christian emailed me but because of the words of the song--they hit me straight in the face. They are beautiful and encouraging and heartfelt and everything that I could ever want in a good hopeful love song. "A Hymn for Her" is all about being hopeful and patient and waiting for someone that's worth it to come along.

I still look at the place that I was sittting that morning outside of Einstein's and relive how excited I was as I sat there and listened to the song for the first time. What a beautiful morning it was.

This is a hymn, a hymn for her
to the one that I'll adore


Please, listen.

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Most of the time, I don't feel like writing in complete thoughts. Blogging is tough for me in that way. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to organize my thoughts and being on a computer doesn't help the process. I always have so much useless information running around in my head. I try to start out anything that I write on paper, so I can get my scatterbrainedness out and things in order. With blogging, I tend to just go for it, so things are either super choppy or really long and annoying--- until I've written a whole paragraph about the fact that I'm crazy.

ANYWAYS.
I passed my guarding class today. Thank the good Lord. This weekend has been a real test to my faith. From the YOKE lock-in Friday night and lifeguarding saturday and sunday, I wasn't sure I could do it. I felt like I could physically feel the weight of stress these past few days, but I saw God do some seriously obvious prayer answering. Why do I worry? I don't know. It's what we do as humans but females especially or something like that. I try to rely on myself, and it just doesn't work. Is it a lack of faith? Why yes, it absolutely is. I'm working on it. I'm working on a lot of things. But He's changing my heart all the time, and I am certain He will finish the good work He started in me. I must remember that He has prepared in advance the things that I am supposed to do.

Sometimes my heart gets a good dose of calmness.

I must register for classes tomorrow.
I must go to bed.
So much to do this week.
Trusting.
Trusting.
Trusting.
Trusting that I will manage everything alright.
I'm ready for summer, and it feels good to say that.

Bore post.

I survived my first weekend of the lifeguarding class. One more to go. It was better than I expected. We got there at 8am. They sequestered us into a tiny classroom, told us to go change into our swimsuits, and get ready to swim a three hundred, which is six laps--breast stroke and free style. I was a bit relieved that it was less than I expected, but I still wasn't quite prepared to swim nonstop for so long. It was so tiring and by just the second lap I wasn't sure if I would make it. I have little to no upper-body strength, so I spent my time catching my breath and kicking as hard as I could so my leg strength would get me by. Our next pretest was to tread water for two minutes without using our arms. Afterwards, the two minutes seemed like they went by pretty quickly...But it was a scary moment when our instructor said that only thirty seconds had passed when it felt like it'd been thirty minutes. In the next part of the pretest we had to swim across the pool, do a surface dive, and get a weight from the bottom of the fifteen foot diving well. A lot of people had trouble getting the brick since they couldn't see without goggles, and it hurts your ears pretty badly to swim down that deep, but we all (almost) ended up getting it. I suppose the point of all the pretest stuff is to weed out the wienies and make sure we can all decently swim. Throughout the day we watched vidoes about how to save people in different situations and different techniques for entering the water and getting victims out safely, and then we practiced all the techniques. It was all very intense and demanding. I just have to get through this upcoming weekend, and I will be able to breathe.

I forgot my wallet.

I can feel my stomach eating itself.

I don’t skip lunch unless it’s for a dire cause—aka an art history test or quiz, eeeh. But right now I must be here ….not eating lunch, but sitting through Art History  173.  I like watching the people around me tumble and stumble and pin and poke and post and tweet on their social networks. I also like to watch the studious children take notes, and I dream of the day that I once took notes that I never read. I’ve been all about the week-before-the-exam cram this semester.

My soul hates lecture classes.

Anthropology will be the death of me…not looking forward to that final cram session.  Sometimes I like to lie myself into thinking that I’m actually interested in the alleged human origin from alleged monkeys and such, but that’s tough. I don’t care. I don’t care about science of any sorts. Things happen. It’s amazing, but I just don’t feel like knowing why.

There are just better things to be done and thought about at the moment than some of the unnecessary information that’s coming from the front of this cramped lecture hall. 

I’m so hungry that I’m getting cranky. I hope I have the energy to drag myself to food. This isn’t very healthy preparation for life guarding this weekend. Caroline and I practiced swimming the other night. I’m kind of excited about this weekend since my sister and I acclimated ourselves to the pool environment. I think we’re as mentally prepared as possible. I think we’ll go swimming again tonight. I heard through the grape vine that the life guarding pretest is swimming somewhere between 10-20 laps. Goodness gracious. My arms may very well fall plum o-f-t. 


I can't get the font size right... I swapped this over from a word document and it's being all fussy. Oh well. Deal with it, self.

Back to the grind.

Spring break is sadly over.  My sister and I planned on going home Friday morning, but Thursday night we decided "What what what are we doing? Let's go home now!" We packed up super quick....made sure to grab all the now unneeded winter frocks and boots to save some space in our room for spring time... then we headed out! We didn't tell the parents that we were coming home earlier then planned, so it was a nice little surprise to knock on our backdoor and see their faces when they realized it was us. The whole empty nest syndrome gets to them sometimes, I think. It was great to be home. Just the smell of my house is a comfort. My older sister Abby came to stay with us the first weekend we were in. Oooh, and that was a treat! Hahh. Abby is one of my favorite people in the universe and definitely one of my best friends.

It was really nice to be home for a bit knowing that I won't be there all summer. My sister Caroline and I are working at a christian camp this summer in Kentucky. We'll only be home a few weeks at the most at the end of the year before we ship off to camp for ten weeks. I'm excited and hesitant about a few things at the same time. I start my life guard certification class this weekend, and I must must must pass it. I'll be ready and excited for camp once I get through the life guarding class. Let's hope it'll be over before I know it. Maybe, I'm speaking too soon, but I'm already expecting one of the best summers of my life. It'll be "the hardest job I'll ever love", and I can't wait.

Messy room, wet hair, and everything

I am going to sleep before 10pm tonight if it kills me. I can't wait. I got barely over two hours of sleep last night but doing well on my anthropology test was worth it. I'd rather be sleepy than do terribly on an exam. It's weird... the days that I get the least amount of sleep are the ones that I tend to be able to make it through the easiest. It's like naturally something in me knows that I have to put in the extra effort to be awake and alert, so I don't even notice it.

There just seems to have been SO much this week. Yaaa know that feeling when you have a ton of stress built up and then it's over and you can't even remember why you worried so much? I always try to remember that when I'm studying for a test or writing a paper. I try to realize that before I know it I will be in the classroom turning it in all finished, so there isn't a need in the world to fret. It is true. Tomorrow always comes...especially due date tomorrows.

I must've been stressing pretty badly because I feel kind of brain dead right now. I don't know what to do with myself.

I can't wait to get home and rest for a few days. It's going to be a good week off with the family.  There's not a place in the world I'd rather be next week. Cannoooot waaiiiitttttt. Life is beautiful.

I had critique Tuesday for my press mold project. They were made by making a mold of a nail polish container with plaster and clay. Once all that set up, I removed the actual nail polish bottle from the clay and plaster and then was able to press clay into the mold and make multiples that were later fired. I made some of them nicer and solid, some cracked and piecey, and some of them are only fragments. There are about 120 casts, including the fragmented pieces.

I think I blogged earlier about my issue with materialism/consumerism and all that jazz that really irks me about the world. I personally paint my nails about a trillion times a week on average, so the polish bottle itself is pretty personal to me. I think my concept can say a lot of different things, but it's a pretty clear message when you get right down and simple with it... Material items do not last.  Take what you want and leave what you want.

"Crit" went swell for the project. I remember first getting into art 101 here and realizing we'd have to go around and talk about each person's work as a group. This idea was a bit scary for me at first. I've come to love it though. It's so interesting and beneficial to hear feedback about what your work means to other people. It can all be so subjective and personal, but at the same time art can be very obvious and this-is-what-I'm-saiying. What does it mean, how does it make you feeel (haha, I've always gotten a kick out of that one), what is it saying about the artist, about life, about society, culture or just plain-old what does it look like and how does that work for the viewer? etc etc etc etc etc.  The list goes on and on. Can I just say that I adore critique days? I love hearing what people personally think about their own work and what they were trying to say with it, compared to how other people view and feel about the work. The more and more I get into art, I realize I cannot simply make aesthetically pleasing, pretty things. Meaning is so subjective but must be there in some way, or we become mere decorators and embellishers rather than artists. It's crazy how all the projects that I do are each related and connected in different subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways that I never intended. It's amazing to see connections in my classmates' work as well. It's all so interesting just to see the things that people dream up and create. Love lovelovelove.

UhhHuhh.

Silence officially broken. I knew it was coming. More damage done? Hope not. I don’t know if he understands, but I hope one day he will or he’ll just let it go like I had to.
 

You know.... that awkward moment... when my best friend says she’s a nursing major at a Christian Science church that doesn’t believe in medicine.  Hmmm…“Undecided, Journalism, Nursing…, Graphic Design," we said. At that moment, I thought her answer sounded best. Little did I remember that Christian Scientists believe illness is an illusion, and they deny most (if not all) medical attention.  I don’t have the time or energy to explain my feelings about that afternoon, but I will not be back. The whole feel-like-the-minority thing worked. I was so out of place. I should eventually write it all down. The whole situation got my heart searching and aching for those people. Do I believe in absolute truth, they ask? Yes, yes I do. I have to. What's the point of believing if I don't?

So much going on lately. Not enough time to sort out my thoughts.

Yesterday, I went from about 6:30 to 9:30 non stop.

My hands are dry and stained.

Working with clay that sucked every bit of moisture out of my already dry hands and ink from the letterpress shop did a number on my hands.

I've been making  a billion clay replicas of nail polish bottles for a project in my Art 103 class. I got to work in the Letterpress shop last night. It was a dream come true. I feel like I could really fall in love with letterpress. Typography is a beautiful thing. Don’t tell me that print is dying. It is very much alive, and we shall keep it that way.