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Life
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Posted At: 12:31am by Anna Joy
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I've changed a lot since I went to college. In some ways, for the better. In some ways....not so much. I feel like I've become more skeptical of everyone and at the same time become more honest with what I really think about people. Is it necessarily a good thing? I don't know. I've often wondered that. There's such a fine line between bearing false witness and....well, bearing false witness. Is it better to be honest and let people know what you really think of them or to just tell them that - yeah, sure, you're fine, I don't actually hate your guts. (But maybe that's too dramatic...)
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
But isn't it easy to? I've come to the point in my life where professionalism has got to kick in at some point, and yet I don't feel like professionalism and the office politics I'll soon be engaging jive with my personality. I'm not a conversationalist. I don't like to tone it down. It either is or it isn't. It's not in between. It's not almost. In some situations, I do. In others . . .
As someone who strives for consistency, balance, and "norms," I find it incredibly difficult to actually achieve these things. No matter how much I want to will it into existence, there isn't always a clear black and white. In my mind, maybe there is. But in yours? What if you're black and I'm white? Granted, I'm still stuck on earth, and it doesn't look like death is in the 5 year plan (so far, obit. probably in the paper tomorrow - struck down by lightning).
I don't know where to fall. Obviously, I'm not perfect. And lately my human nature seems to be particularly strong in thinking that if not perfect, then pretty darn close. But...oh, wait, that's wrong, too. Even when the answer is staring you in the face, sometimes it's hard to come to terms with, no? This guy died for me some 2,000 odd years ago and it's free...and it's...everything.
Why is it so hard?
Lord, have mercy.
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Posted At: 8:16pm by Anna Joy
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So I spent a wonderful day with Luvable Lutheran today in Minneapolis at the Mall of America and at her apartment helping her clean and pack for her move to Chicago. While we were at the mall, we went into the Coach store where a woman who obviously worked there was standing.
Now, I don't usually dress up to go to a mall. I was wearing jeans and some keds with an average Anna-worn shirt. Apparently, this was not classy enough to be worn into a Coach store. The woman didn't greet us, ask us if we needed help finding anything, and was generally unfriendly. Not to mention that she very obviously looked down at my shoes at one point, and looked away with disgust. Now, my Keds didn't cost me an arm and a leg ($40 for a good pair of sneakers is reasonable).
Thank God that Jesus doesn't look at us that way despite our filthy rags! 
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Posted At: 3:09pm by Anna Joy
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(I posted this on my Facebook and decided to post it here, too.)
So I have a story.
My family up and decided to go to Minneapolis on Saturday (sorry, Andrea, I wish I would've known sooner and I would've called you). My brother needed to go to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to look at some medieval art for his history class. I wanted to go just because it's an art museum.  We talked my parents into going dropping us off and giving us two hours.
Little did we know that the place my brother wanted to be dropped off at was the wrong place. (Yeah, my little brother is kind of special that way.) He looked up the wrong directions and we ended up at a culinary school. Then, when the lady at the desk told him which direction to go to find the right place, he went the wrong way. Six blocks the wrong way. We stopped at the Westin to ask for directions. The guy said that it'd be 20 blocks in the opposite direction. We walked back in the freezing cold weather and found Target Center where we wandered around for a while to warm up. I looked across the street and there was a coffee shop. :D
So we went into the coffee shop and I waited around for the Barista to get done smoking outside. I ordered a small cappuccino (first time I've ever ordered black coffee). As the barista was making it he told me that it would be the best cappuccino I'd ever had because it was made from the tears of angels as they wept. We started talking about where we're from and I told him Nebraska (I figured Nebraska's better than Alabama). He said he hated Nebraska with a passion because of the Grand Island flies in August. August 13th, to be specific. His car broke down so he got stuck on a bus across the state sitting next to some crazy guy telling him about how Genesis is actually a story about an alien she-God and the 13th planet orbiting our solar system which wreaks havoc on the earth once every ten years.
Just down the street was this Scientology center with about 200 protesters standing outside...and we went to talk to them. The lady we talked to had rainbow hair (which was awesome) and piercings (which was also awesome). She said she just hates the way scientology operates and wishes that they would stop some of their unethical business and personal practices. Can't blame 'em for trying.
Anyway. If you're going to have an adventure in downtown Minneapolis, make sure you stop in and say hi to my crazy Barista. He makes good cappuccino.
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I am listening to New Soul
Release Date: 05 February, 2008
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Posted At: 8:38pm by Anna Joy
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I'm an artist and as such I tend to be a little indie/artsy. Make fun of me all you want. I don't care. :P (No really, I don't care.)
In my latest artcapades, I decided to take the pledge to buy handmade gifts this year. Not necessarily because I think it's the best idea on the planet. It'll definitely make gift buying harder. But more because I want to support my fellow craftsmen/women.
Check it out: Buy Handmade
A great place to buy handmade, original stuff: Etsy
Whether or not you give it a try, take a look at the labels on what you buy at stores and see where it comes from. Most things come from overseas. So why not support an artist from the states?
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Posted At: 12:17pm by Anna Joy
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She lives!...mainly because Stan threatened me. But also because I planned to post during break so here I am.
This past semester was hard. Printmaking and illustration combined took up about 60 hours a week of homework. They say that you can count on about twice as much homework as the number of credit hours in a class. But for art, that doesn't apply. I put in 60 hours in two weeks on my illustration final, and barely finished in time to submit it. It got done, though, and that's what counts. I've also discovered that no matter what the gen ed, it all feels like a total waste of time. Is anyone with me on that one?
This next semester I'll be working two jobs again. I was offered to become a print technician in September, and took the job not realizing that it would make me responsible for over 100 people's homework every night. I run maintenance on the printers (Epson 9800, 7600, 4000, and 3800) and also queue people's prints. Last year everyone handled their own printing, which caused some damage to the printers, prints coming out badly, etc. So...woohoo! I work nights. I also still work in the library in the tech services part. In other words, I stick the call labels to the spine of books. It's a lowkey job...not much stress involved, thank God.
Basically, that's my life in a nutshell. I spent most of last semester in survival mode. In September, I had been having problems and pain in my abdominal area, so I went to the doctor and they found some cysts which had a slight risk of being cancer. Fortunately, they ran some tests and found out that it was NOT cancer, that I was healthy, and they were caused due to stress (best friend's wedding, day camp, Cambodia, back to school, etc). I got put on some meds and it fixed the problem.
Apartment life is nice, but it's also nice still being on campus. I can see why people would want to live off campus, though. I won't be able to live off campus until senior year, which is fine with me. I have a friend that lives in a cute little apartment downtown that looks like it would be nice. We'll see! It's a year and a half away still. ;)
And that's about it for now... I'll try to blog more later and see if I can come up with more interesting things to blog about!
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