Hunger and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a beautiful and happy time for most Americans. It is a time when we can forget about work, school, and eat our freaking hearts out. If your family is anything like mine, thanksgiving is also the annual gossip party of the year. "Who's divorcing who?...." "She's living with him?..." And all of my life, this is what i understood Thanksgiving to be. Food, Family, Football, and beer. Did i mention LOTS of beer.

But last year something happened. I did something crazy....something that upset alot of my family. Most of them still don't understand why I went. I'm sure my name was involved in much of the gossip last year at this time. Many relatives wondering what could possibly be important enough to pass up my acceptance into the UTSA music program, and take a semester off of school. I did it so i could travel to Johannesburg, South Africa to serve. I did it because I knew it was what I was supposed to do. And it was a decision that absolutely changed my life.

While I was there the trip fell on Thanksgiving. But, after a few days of working in the squatter camps and seeing the children I had completely forgot the holiday. Out of nowhere Mr. Kyle Burkholder announced the idea of a Thanksgiving feast, assuring us that it would be a unforgettable one.

A majority of the people in poverty live on less than a dollar a day. So on Thanksgiving all 6 of us sat down to a feast worth six dollars total. No turkey, no pie, just bland porridge and a chicken bone that kinda had meat on it, for six people. This is how people live everyday of there life. Holiday or not!!

So this year as i sit down to eat a very bittersweet American Thanksgiving feast. Today I will pray for those who will not have a home cooked turkey this year. The people who might not ever be able to say the words, "I'm full."



Today may we all remember what to really be thankful for..........

CD Review: John Legend "Evolver"

So one thing that i wanted to do on this blog is periodically post CD reviews of some of the music that i buy. 

Today's post is the latest CD of John Legend. 

I bought it about a month ago and hated it...........at first.

You see, I dislike change when it comes to artists that I like. I still don't like MAE's new CD and i think "Make yourself" was the greatest Incubus CD that will ever be released. -anyways-

In my opinion this CD was very Kanye West influenced, which kinda makes sense since that's his producer. What upset me probably more than anything was that on most of these songs there was very little piano, and alot of synthetic beats. But as I continued to listened to the CD the music grew on me. It is very well written and very catchy. His lyrics are still very smooth and well thought out, and on a few songs you can catch some major reggae influenced which i loved.

All in all i definitely recommend this CD if your a former John Legend fan, and encourage you....if you have no idea who I'm talking about, look him up. I doubt you will regret it.

Stars   4/5

Twilight

So I have not read this book. I will most likely never read this book. But I will be standing in line for about two hours, so Jerika can see the movie based of the book series she finished reading in about a week 1/2. I have never seen her read that fast.....ever. Actually I don't think I have ever seen her finish a book....ever!!! It wasn't until one early Summer morning at the airport on the way to New Orleans she picked it up, and never put it down.

So with much excitement tonight we will be waiting too catch the midnight showing. Waiting with high expectations for the vampire plot to unfold and deep, dark secrets to be revealed.

I thought in the meantime, while your waiting for the movie to come out to, I would give you a little history on the writing of the book that I found from the author, Stephanie Meyers. I don't know why but the story behind the writting always intrests me more.

The Writing: I know the exact date that I began writing Twilight, because it was also the first day of swim lessons for my kids. So I can say with certainty that it all started on June 2, 2003. Up to this point, I had not written anything besides a few chapters (of other stories) that I never got very far on, and nothing at all since the birth of my first son, six years earlier.
I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 ("Confessions") of the book.
Though I had a million things to do (i.e. making breakfast for hungry children, dressing and changing the diapers of said children, finding the swimsuits that no one ever puts away in the right place, etc.), I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. I was so intrigued by the nameless couple's story that I hated the idea of forgetting it; it was the kind of dream that makes you want to call your friend and bore her with a detailed description. (Also, the vampire was just so darned good-looking, that I didn't want to lose the mental image.) Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering. But I didn't want to lose the dream, so I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters "he" and "she."
From that point on, not one day passed that I did not write something. On bad days, I would only type out a page or two; on good days, I would finish a chapter and then some. I mostly wrote at night, after the kids were asleep so that I could concentrate for longer than five minutes without being interrupted. I started from the scene in the meadow and wrote through to the end.

For more of the story check out http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html

O Sweet Beginning

So this will be the first post of hopefully more to come.



I am very new to this blogging thing as I'm sure you can tell by the template I have going for me right now. I can't necessarily promise quality input on my end. Honestly I cant even promise input at all. But I figure what the hell.....why not? It might actually force me into some quiet time to write. It might force me to question things, to look a little deeper into life....or I could just give me a excuse to post some good music videos. Either way here goes nothin.................







let it begin.