somethings just aren't worth the time to stress over...

so yesterday at work there was a woman who was visibly upset storming around the department, so i stopped and asked her if she needed any help? she replied angrily, where is the lingerie department? i said, oh it's right up the escalator. immediately she replies with some words that i am not comfortable repeating and storms off yelling for Christ's sake, why can't you put all the women's stuff on the same floor?!? and she walks away saying more words that i probably shouldn't repeat.
honestly, i really hope that nothing so petty as a department store setup doesn't visibly frustrate me as it did to this woman. there are just so many more things in the world to think about... i understand everyone is different but i feel like we demand everything to be conveinent to us when in all reality it's not that hard to let an escalator take you up a flight or do something, you know?
just a thought...

p.s. day one of "no boys allowed" is going well. i've prayed some today and i can tell that God is going to reveal somethings to me through this...

fourth piece?

what should the fourth one have?

seven day plan, part 1: no boys allowed

so i am trying some things to make myself a better person inside and out. i still feel like i am a boy-crazed teeny bopper who has a new crush every 5 minutes and i need to work on ending this problem. not that it's bad or anything but i feel there are times where boys become idols in our minds and no one should have that power in my life. therefore tomorrow i will begin a new project. seven days of not thinking about boys. how is this possible, you ask? well it's not. but everytime thoughts pop into my head i will curb it by praying for a cause. (thanks to karina for this idea). i will be praying for seven different things (one for each day).
don't think that my mind is consumed with boys all day, it's not, but i feel that even if i can take a minute away from myself and use it to think and pray for something that is worthwhile, then it can help me become a better person.
i was going to start today, but i wanted a little more structure in my plan... :)

the sky is not falling

last night i blogged and this afternoon i felt like i needed to blog again in reponse to it.
at church we are reading through my favorite book, the book of ephesians, and today's message helped me realize that i am just human and i cannot be in control of things all the time. in chapter 5, verse 15 it says, "be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." and my pastor said that we are good at trusting God with all the big decisions in our lives (i.e. me moving out to tennessee) but rarely do it with the small decisions that we make each day. not only that but how many opportunities do we pass up each day with having the chance to reach out to people or experience all that we can?

right now, the way i like to describe where i am at is i have given God the keys to my car and have let Him drive thus far, but now i am getting impatient and i am ready to take over because i feel like we are not getting to the final destination fast enough or are taking a route i would avoid. so i am sitting in the passenger seat whining... by stressing over the stupid things daily i am missing opportunities to grow as a person and help those around me grow, you know? it's like while whining i am not appreciating the scenery on our drive... this may only make sense to me...

on another note... friends are awesome and i am beyond grateful for the people i have back home but also thankful for the people i have met out here... people don't have to let me into their lives and vice-versa, but there is something so beautiful that comes out of a connection that people have whether it's from being friends of friends or someone you meet at church or live with, the way people come together just blows me away. if i didn't have some of these people in my life, i wouldn't want to know where i would be now...

too much thinking for the afternoon, and surely too much myspace... i must get off :)

the sky is falling, the sky is falling

tonight i had a break down, i wanted to just go home. but where is home? california is home because my friends and family are there, but many of them are graduating in the next month and my parents are moving from victorville to seattle. so where is home exactly? tennessee isn't home because i am not really all that comfortable out here and am realizing that it is going to be a little difficult finding people who understand me.
sitting in my piles of paper that are awaiting shredding i found myself caught in jealousy and selfishness all leading me to a very lost place. home is going to be where i make it but i really just don't know if nashville is that place i want to lay a foundation. do i want to go back to school? that's what i tell a lot of people to downplay the whole i moved to nashville to work in music plan. i love school but what i want to study, more than likely, will not lead to a promising career.
what the heck is a promising career anyway? working for the man? because i can get one of those jobs, i just would rather not. perhaps this is for selfish reasons, but there is just too much inside of me that would die if i were to do that right now. when i worked for a law office last year, i was stable and financially comfortable but was the most depressed i had ever been in my life and i never want to feel like that again.
i was reminded recently of why i choose my major. i remember it vividly. the summer of 2003 i was taking an international relations course and we watched a documentary on the rwandan genocide and it was like a nuclear exploision went off in my heart, something was released that i cannot contain and it's that there are people out there who are lost and falling victims to injustice and i just can't sit around and read about it.
so yes, i know your next question, are you doing anything about it now nicole? no i am not and i am ashamed. the reason i am following christian music is because it helped me find God when i was lost in high school. but i still feel like i wouldn't be satisfied if i get a great job in the industry, because i just don't know...
i don't know where i am going with all this, it's like i am explaining my whole move out here again... maybe i need to remind myself (my whole story on my blog if you want to read it)...
what is it we even strive for? life makes no sense to me at times. i just finished watching "chicken little" (this is what i do when i am sick, i rent disney movies..) and all the chicken wanted was acceptance from his father. and earlier i was thinking about the movie "rushmore," what is your rushmore? what do we live for?
i don't know if i can answer that and i am not sure if i like that i cannot answer it. i am a christian, would that default my answer to i live for Christ? but then there would be a million default answers for each part of my life. not that living for God isn't a bad thing, but it has to be more than that.
tonight i took another step into losing control of my life, which is the most difficult thing i have done. i gave up a big part of it when i moved out here because i felt that i was called to do it, but in the past couple weeks i have learned that there are still things that i cannot let go of. if i can trust God to move me 2,000 miles without knowing a person or having a job, then why can't i give Him other things? tonight i learned that i don't want to stress over things that i don't need to stress over. i was humbled.

normally i don't get so vulnerable on any of my blogs, but it was needed this evening. difficult times will still come whether i am here or anywhere else, but i am learning that there are people who genuinely care and that is so beautiful to me.

there are things about myself that i just may never understand...

do statues question their sculptors? do paintings question their artists? do songs question their composers? then why do i question God?
there was a story my roommate told me once, not sure if it was her experience or someone she knew but there was a kid in line at a bank and he asked his dad, how does God know everything about me? and the dad hesitated and looked at people blankly and then looked to his child and said well, you know how a painter knows everything about their painting? that is how God knows us, He created us
where i am getting at is that amazing things happen that could NEVER in a million years be able to configure in my life that God does in a blink of an eye. my move here was flawless, almost too perfect, i was just waiting for something wrong to happen, but nothing did. why did i doubt? recently doubt has filled my mind. an amazing band (sherwood) quotes in a song doubt has left me blind and it truly can.
i doubt myself a lot. it's rediculous and frustrates me. but i have become a worse-case scenerio type person and so i somehow take the amazing things that happen in my life and throw doubt and negativity into it that it becomes a burden instead of something good.

blessed with awesome roommates

so one of my biggest fears in coming out to tennessee was the people i was living with. were they going to like me? are they nice? can they deal with a crazy californian who doesn't eat meat? well let me just say that i am truly blessed.
i have been bummed out lately and today (on my 4th month anniversary of living here) they surprised me with a poster of napoleon dynamite that looks like this:

except they put some of my favorite quotes on it like, "your mom goes to college", "you could totally drink whole milk" and "gosh! idiot!" not only that, they wrote a little story called "it's a wonderful journey: nicole's adventure in nashville." the story consists of things that would never have happend had i moved to nashville.
here are some excerpts:
- she would have never seen the bill clinton library
- she would have never experienced a true southern tradition of deer dodging
- she would have never learned of her love for men with facial hair that drive big trucks
- she may have completely missed her dove phase
- she has read 1/3 of the bible
- she has learned to trust God more and to have patience for His timing
and...
- she wouldn't have touched all the lives shehas touched with her spirit, her heart, her faith, her ideas, her character, her fortitude, her kindness and her intellect.

there are a ton more but i just wanted to cover some. i want to cry! they really are great :) and i joke that i don't have any friends, but i know we all know that's not true! my roommates are some of the coolest people EVER.
so here is a hi-five out to karina and debi for my awesome poster and for their kindness and patience for dealing with a city girl in the south :)

through things like this God tells me that i am really meant to be here, though at times i want to just be back west, i know i was lead here for a reason...

1/3 of a year

happy four months of me being in tennessee...

contemplative on a cloudy day

funny that i am writing this blog at this moment... i am also surfing purevolume.com to find bands that i have never heard of and i am listening to a song called "you're not alone" by a band called drive by... they're ok, but it's about how i felt the past week or so, isolated. first it began with the realization that i did not get the job at zambooie, which is ok, i don't know if it was a perfect fit, but it was just nice to think about getting away from the monotony of jc penney. then my computer crashed, i knew it was coming, i was just hoping it would take its time getting there. i didn't exactly have an extra $1,000 sitting around or anything but my computer is a big way i keep in touch with my friends back home and i just do everything on it, so it sucked to lose it :( then i was faced with the thought of can i afford to add a monthly payment to my already small income? and if i did purchase another computer it would pretty much put in concrete that my plans of going home for pepperdine's graduation just won't happen. then we also had bible study on wednesday where i felt like a horrible person after reading the chapter in our book. i felt like the author told me that since i do want a career and am not in a hurry to get married, raise kids and become a house wife that i am a bad person. and i expressed my feelings at bible study and felt like no one really understood where i was coming from, i felt like i had alienated myself from them.
moving out to tennessee, i knew would be difficult, but i thought by now it would be a little easier, but it continues to get harder. many days in the past week, i just wanted to be home. away from the uncertainty and just with people who i feel understand me. and for a while i had been working towards the end of april where i could see everyone again, but now that is gone. (i bought a new laptop, i had to... it was sooo cheap and such a blessing for compusa to have a great sale the same week my computer crashed).
i also am beginning to just detest work. not like i did when working at the law office, just the lack of respect people have for eachother makes me sad.
also there are a lot of anniversaries coming up for me, tomorrow marks my 4 months in being here... that is 1/3 of a year, and i feel like i have accomplished little and it drives me insane. also it has almost been a year since i have graduated. a whole year. i don't even know how to respond to that.
i don't mean to be in a gross mood, i am just trying to find my place and feel like all i am doing is walking backwards...
on a better note, i got to go to pf chang with a friend from college who lives in memphis now and was up for a few days. it was SO GOOD to see someone familar and just catch up. but then again it made me miss california that much more... also my awesome roommate and i went to a fun art show on saturday with loud music (hehehe). but we made a pact and my end of it is to go out and make myself more social, so i will be sure to update you (my avid reader, hehe) on how that goes :)

well today is nicole needs another job day (yesterday at work was enough motivation to get a new one...) so i am off.

out of service

sooooo, on sunday my computer decided to not work anymore... :(

which means i have no idea when i will be able to update my blog.

prayer is appreciated for me to figure out how to buy a new one :)

take care,
nicole

my dove phase

so this past weekend i got adventurous and decided to paint a canvas. this i never really have done before, i like painting objects, like tote bags, shirts, clay pots, but never a canvas. well here is the outcome:

at first i wasn't too excited but after finding an excellent spot for it in my room i love it! there is a lot of meaning behind it for me :) hehehe.
i think my original title for it was dark window into my soul or something dramatic like that, but am thinking of renaming it, any thoughts?

an enemy in hope

being an avid fan of the show injustice, i can't help but remember an episode that occured early on in the series where the man behind bars said, "hope is my enemy."
there are few things that i want to experience in my life and living without hope is one of those things. i went through a period post-graduation where i ran very low on hope and that is a level of unhappiness that was unbearable, because i couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. but on the other hand, what if hope is also my enemy? giving myself false hope for something that may or may not happen can lead to an even bigger heart break than not hoping. where is the balance?
this weekend i couldn't help but think about how evil can work in hope and today my pastor said it best when we take things that we believe will be self-gratifying and begin to idolize them over God. we idolize self-interest. so then why do we have hope?
dictionary.com defines 'hope' as, "to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment." people hope to win the lottery, but do they really expect it to be fulfilled? i feel like i almost become so focused on my expectations being fulfilled that i lose track of everything that is important in my life.
when i refer to hope i mean it in every part of my life from hoping that i get a job, hoping that i don't get sick, etc. as i mentioned in a previous post, i am learning how much i am striving towards things that immediately satisfy my selfish wants as opposed to long-term investment in my actual needs. what is my hope is not in all reality hope at all, it's just the evil in selfishness coming to surface while what i really should have hope for is shadowed behind the clouds that i have created.
so when the man on "injustice" described hope as being his worse enemy, i can sympathize, because we can idolize our hopes so much that it puts us in our own prison. we can have our hopes and dreams, but when they cross the line to where it consumes us that is when our hope becomes an enemy. and from being a christian i am learning that the best thing to do with my hope prior to it's transition into something dangerous is to just give it to God because He can control it more than i can.
but i am still learning and probably will be for the rest of my life. but in the end, it makes me less scared to have hope :)

bumper sticker agenda

i don't understand bumper stickers. they make no sense to me. i understand people want to share their opinions with their fellow drivers, you know, who they are voting for, some thing they believe in, people they don't like; but honestly, unless it is mother theresa behind that wheel with a Jesus fish on the back of her car i think the views pasted to someones vehicle can hinder who they are trying to support.
for example, if a person is driving their car on the freeway with a peace-promoting sticker let's say it says "visualize world peace," nice and simple right? but you accidentally cut them off on the freeway and they drive by you like a mad person with a certain finger and explatives. does this person really support peace? i would question what type of peace this person was trying to visualize.
also, what if someone who supported al gore back in the 2000 election and had the bumper sticker "gore/liberman 2000" and then you saw them littering? mr. gore would not approve of this for he wrote some books on the enviroment and has been a big activist for it. but someone who didn't know mr. gore's environmental background may think, maybe this candidate is ok with someone who supports them littering?
my last example really bugs me and there are many combinations both in the right and left. there will be a Jesus fish on the car right next to a bumper sticker that says "the road to hell is paved with (fill in the blank, republicans or democrats)." i'm sorry, how did that person get to decide who goes to hell based on political preference? not to forget though that Jesus preaches love and that we should not judge. so from a non-christian perspective, i would want to run far away from christianity if that's how they look at the world. i don't want to be judged and i don't want your car to tell me that you would judge me.
so i guess in the end, bumper stickers are baffling to my mind.
if you have stickers on your car, that is ok, i don't want this to sound like i hate you or anything. but, what i am saying is that bumper stickers can help and hinder the people or causes they represent and sometimes i just don't understand them...