The Family Vacation Series day 1

blog one

The pretrip briefing

From the time dad got us a single hotel room for our 5 family members on the mexico-us border in Chula Vista, CA (to save money) to the time mom got stranded on the metro in D.C. and took the rail all the way to Maryland, we certainly know how to travel.

So this Family vacation will be carefully documented via blog.

Here is the outline:

saturday to saturday.

two days in Jacksonville, FL and then the rest in Orlando

one mom

one dad

one me (18 years old)

one Jordy (16 year old brother)

one Liam (11 year old brother)

2 surfboards attached to the top of our saturn view

3 laptops

The plan is to stay two days in Jacksonville for my dad's graduation ceremony for his masters program, and the other 5 in orlando, for the visiting of friends, non oiled beaches, and 2 glorious days of disney world.

day one

at about 5 am we headed out. with a quick and somewhat incoherent breakfast stop at 6 and a solid sleep till 9. the trip itself was somewhat uneventful. we arrived at olive garden to spend some gift cards for lunch, and then crashed in the ONE ROOM hotel room until 6.

Then we headed to the beach! Jordy reattached his surfboard to the top of the car, only he put the board too far forward on the car. Now IF you've ever attached a large flat object to a moving surface, you might be aware that if that flat object hangs a foot over the front of the moving object, the wind resistance that is created at the speed of about 45 mph sounds like someone is buffering the object with a professional bufferer thingy. We made sure to shout extra loud to be heard, as jordy tried to pretend like it was barely noticeable.

The beach was fun, with a distinct dead fish smell. Liam even got up on the board a couple times.

After the beach, Jordy and Liam and I tried to persuade mom and dad the necessity of buying us a weeks worth of Naked Juice, P B and J's and Gummy Worms. (sour, of course)

ended up with the Naked Juice, the P B &J's and some fig newtons. (Much to Liams chagrin, gummy worms aren't the healthiest snack.) and getting ready to attend a 3000 member black baptist church in Jacksonville tomorrow because dad is good friends with the worship pastor. Very, Very excited.

Signing out.

Mal.

Common Highschool Twitter errors

Whether it's because of boredom or lack of maturity, Highschoolers make at least 5 fatal twitter errors which may cause extreme loss of followers. Highschoolers, be warned.

5 Common Highschool Tweet Errors

1. Ex-Boyfriend/Ex-Girlfriend Tweets

We don't want to hear you vent. Twitter may give you the illusion that you are free to speak your mind. You are, but nobody apreciates slander or desperate pleas for attention. Sad but true. When you want to tweet, JOURNAL.

2. Inside Joke Tweets

If you're the only person who can understand your tweet, then don't post it. Instead, join the conversation that happens when people understand what you're saying.

3. Potty Humor Tweets

Especially annoying in girls. Please guys, talking about your underwear stopped being cool in the third grade.

4. Excessive Celebrity Shoutout Tweets

There's nothing wrong in telling your hero they rocked at the concert, or asking them a genuine question. Most Artists are very happy to join in intelligent conversation and you may even be surprized when they respond!
However, tweeting "OMG U ROCK @joejonas!!!!!" 40 times a day is not going to help you gain followers or gain respect from your hero, either.

5. Hot Guy Tweets

This common girl error was brought to my attention by a male tweeter who was severly annoyed. Girls, when it comes to how hot you think taylor lautner is: we. don't. care.


Twitter is a wonderful way to share information and engage in conversation. Be mindful of the other people around you. Be aware that you have something importaint to contribute to the conversation, and don't let pointless words obstruct the importaint ones.

oh, and follow me, @mallyrenee

Why Hamlet and Rob Bell got on my nerves today.

So I saw Hamlet for the first time at the Shakespeare Fest and it was sincerely incredible. My props to the actors. Seriously.
And maybe it's just that i have a cold and when i do, my thoughts do weird things, but today i realized that the problem i have with Hamlet is the same problem I have with Rob Bell.
Or to be fair, it's the same problem I have with ALOT of Christians.
To be really fair, it's the same problem I have with alot of people. However, I hold Christians to a higher standard.
That being said, I was watching Hamlet today and the character of Hamlet was driving me crazy. The actor was great. Portrayed him perfectly. (yes, I have read the play.)
But HAMLET was annoying. I wanted him to be so... deep. So conflicted. I wanted him to be so, so...
not shallow. Hamlet said things for attention. He took cheap shots. He killed people, almost at random. I wanted him to be.. deep. soul deep. I wanted his every action to be meaningful. But when it comes down to it Hamlet is kinda shallow. Confused, angry, hurt, depressed, but ultimately shallow. He can't get beyond himself and his own view.
And when I read Velvet Elvis, and A Generous Orthadoxy, and even.. yes, Don Miller you're my hero but i have to say it... Blue like Jazz. There are these moments in all the books when i sit back and let the words soak in and say... wow. that was so meaningful. I mean really, life changing words. I even personally know people, more than a few, who've told me that thier lives have been changed by these books.
and then i read the next paragraph and think "Are you kidding me? You just bashed republicans. you just bashed a president, you just told me you don't agree with war. you just randomly inserted pipe references and beer references. for no other point than for me to think you're cool."
I know that everyone wants to be liked, including authors. But some of these things that are thrown into books make me feel as if thier just thrown in to get my attention. It's this inner shallowness that comes out, just like Hamlet. Just when i wanted the author to get beyond themselves.

You must not be a hypocrite if you smoke a pipe right? You're like, authentic dude. legit. I definitely want to hear what you have to say about God since you told me you are a democrat.

I guess there are people who really do think like the paragraph above. Just because they're out there doesn't mean you should cater to them. Even if it makes your book sell.
If these writers aren't inserting random democratic or beer references just for attention, somebody prove me wrong. As of now, i'm under-impressed.

The birth of cool; Don miller, Jon foreman and Darwin.

Don miller says cool people believe things. And it doesn't matter what it is. Don says girls fall for bad guys sometimes. bad guys don't need people to pat them on the back, they're doing something, moving. Even if all thier motion is depravity, even if it's destruction.

Jon foreman believes something. Darwin believes something. In fact, almost every truely influential person believes something. Heart and soul believes it.Ghandi believed something. Nelson Mandela did.

I've been thinking alot about what it really means to believe things. How would I act if I really believed there are children dying of starvation? Or really believed that as an American I am richer than 90% of the world?I have these brief moments, when I travel out of the country, when I believe those things. And I find myself giving everything away.And after two months back in the states, suddenly I find I don't believe it any more, because it doesn't effect the way I live.

On my paper about the emergent churchmy teacher asked me to consider what the Christian faith would look like if eveyone believed in much of emergent orthadoxy. And I began to realize it wouldn't be Christianity at all. (which made me also realize that most people I know who I riding the emegent wave don't really believe half the things they say or hear)Think about it: embracing doubt? Rejecting inerrancy? Always questioning? Always seeking and never finding?

This had a profound effect on my study of the creation/evolution argument.I watched expelled:no intelligence allowed, which discusses the possibility of the intelligent design theory.It poses the question: what does it really look like to believe darwinianism?And the answer was: Hitler. The most famous and adimant supporter of Darwin. Ever.
To believe you're evolved is to believe you're better than someone else.
A Jew, or an elderly person.
And hitler is responsible for the mass murder of over 6 million people.
It takes belief to acomplish something that big.
It takes impassioned, belief filled speeches to rally your nation behind you to attempt to wipe out a people group.It's horrible. It's awful. It's WRONG.

And there's the rub, that some beliefs are wrong.I'm not a scientist. Facts rarely persuade me the way emotions do. What can I say? It's the way I operate.I don't want to believe in Darwinian theories, because I've seen nothing good come from authentic belief in them. I don't believe that sincere opinions are all that sincere when they lead to destruction. All I see in Darwin is destruction and cold, animal instinct.

Ohh and to close with my chickflick quote...

"there is nothing greater than deciding in your life that things maybe really are black and white."

Maybe that's foolish, but it doesn't seem foolish to me.

Sent from my iPhone

On our assignments about creation vs evolution.

I am homeschooled. My Science textbooks are creation textbooks. My friends mom's talk about Liberal's as if they are talking about drug dealers. In fact, they promptly associate the two. I'm sure it's on the scale for them
First support Obama, then you're getting tatoos and having sex.
So I'm not going to lie, when I read part of the God Dellusion and listened to the excerpt from Letter to a Christian Nation, I was sort of.. excited.
These people seem intelligent, rational.
Do I agree with them? no. But I like listening.
I liked the fact that the thing they both seemed to be concerned with is real faith. I think they are right in saying that real belief is a touchy subject, it's one that gets precidence over other issues, and it's one that costs something. It IS bloody.
Because belief in God is a personal thing, but i think it should be talked about. As a Christian, I believe my faith is true, and can stand the test of open debate, i believe it is strong enough to endure the hard questions like stem cell research and abortion.
These people seem very VERY sure that they are right, but then again, so am I. I hope that they're the kind of people one could talk to and feel listened to. Because I do think if faith could be talked about rationally to them, much of the blame on religion would be dispelled.
These excerpts also gave me a greater respect for Tim Keller's Reason for God. I hope that both the authur of Letter to a Christian Nation and the God Dellusion will read Reason for God. And if they didn't agree, I hope they would at least respect the careful documentation and evidence presented.
In other words, I enjoy conversations like this where there is no shouting or name calling, i have more hope that the truth can eventually be spoken.

Holy Confusion Batman! It's the Emerging Church!

Boy does one change their mind about things in a short amount of time.

I waded through Velvet Elvis and A Generous Orthadoxy and The Post-Evangelical and D. A. Carson (Not bad, over my head, but not bad) and Leslie Newbigin and countless others.

I like it, at first. It challenged me. It made me feel cool. What can I say? I'm a prime canidate for the emerging church movement. I'm a pastors kid in the deep south at a white church. I also somehow managed to escape the small town mentality, believe in equal rights for women in the church, am so much against racism in any form that you might say i'm prejudice against racists. And I've seen enough done in the name of Christ in my young years to make a budist monk throw up. Needless to say, I felt the call of this cool, urban movement that validated my spiritual bagage.
So I read, so I felt cool, I referenced postmodernism in casual conversation. I lived it.
But then I read the opposite argument books, and I also I read C. S. Lewis, I read Madeline L'engle. Two authors who really have nothing to do with the movment.
And they taught me something.
They reminded me, that a hopefully journey is not really hopeful unless it arrives at truth.
And that things that are lovely, and wonderful and good aren't often fashionable.
and I felt as if a giant fog had been lifted and my head had cleared.
Yes, there are still problems with evangelicals
there are still problems and disfunction in the church
But, Praise God! There are no problems in the truth, the ever consistancy, the inerrancy of God.
And I don't have to wade through holy confusion, feeling deep with my latte stained copy of Derrida.
I can be still, and know that He is God.

The Hollow Men

Fawkes, Peirs. “The Return of the Yuppie” Photo. Psfk.com 3 Jan. 2007. 16 Dec. 2009.