We Still Don't Know...

We still don’t know if Mika’s family will be staying with us or not. There is a chance that they could come this weekend or the first of next week, but they seem to be waiting out the situation to see if there will be any improvement in Japan’s current state. We must continue to pray for all the people of Japan.

Are we having company?

In about two hours my family will be receiving some interesting news.


You see, my mom has a dear friend in Japan. They met 30 years ago while Mika was attending my mom’s high school as a foreign exchange student. They have kept in touch for all these years. Mika and her family have come to visit my family on two separate occasions, years apart, during my life time. We love her family like they were our own.

Since the earth quake a couple a weeks ago, fortunately none of the family was harmed, but as you can imagine, there is a lot a stress and fear for all the people living in Japan. Due to the circumstances regarding the nuclear plant, Mika’s family is considering taking up the offer we made to them when the disaster first happened, that being for them to stay with us in the U.S.. They wanted us to give them 24 hours to think it over, before we call them back to hear their decision. So we are all waiting for 8:00 PM.

Hi, my name is....

My brother, Jamison, pointed something out the other day. He said to our mom, “What social art is dying and in desperate need of recovery? It is the art of introduction.” This is so true. Young people do not, or maybe don’t even know how to, introduce themselves or especially their friend or acquaintances to other individuals. Jamison brought how he has been taken by a friend to their church, and his friend never introduced him to anyone at the church. Fortunately, Jamison is far from shy and is very capable of speaking to strangers. This being the case he did fine on his own. But, I see it again and again. You can go up and speak to, a young person especially, that is with a friend (or friends) and they rarely say, “Oh, I would like you to meet So-and-So”, or, “This is Bob”. How hard is that? Now, I must say that I am not innocent of this whole lack-of-introducing-someone-thing, or even making the effort to introduce myself, but I defiantly want to improve that.


I think that electronic communication is a wonderful thing, and that it has made life easier in so many ways. With social networks we get so use to just letting “friend” read our profiles and statuses, and vice versa, that we rarely even bother to communicate with individuals any more. We are all just making statement at one another. I think we get caught up in this bubble that has made it harder for us when we do socialize away from technology. I hope we will rejuvenate the’ “Hello, my name is Hannah” in this generation. It will do us some good.

My Stroll Downtown (continued)

It is depressing to realize that gas was this price not long ago.

My Stroll Downtown

I took a stroll in my town this afternoon and took a few photographs.

The Old Courthouse

The Historic Post Office

Popcorn, Blueberries, & Doug May Cause Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Function: noun
1 : the state of being homesick : HOMESICKNESS
2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia (Merriam-Webster)

Nostalgia is a feeling that is relatively new to me. I am only 21 years-old, I have lived in the same house for the entirety of my existence, and I have a relatively simple, yet good life. But in the last year or so, I have experienced a strange, yet vague sense of familiarity in little things. Things such as tunes, smells, cartoons, and, especially food. When I recently encountered these almost forgotten parts of my childhood, I, for the first time ever experienced nostalgia.

A couple of months ago my mom decided to make stove-top popcorn, because my cousin had told us that she eats it and never microwave popcorn. It had been many years since my mom or I had had stove-top popcorn. I took one bite and my brain began to tingle. I was taken back to when I was about 6 or 7 years old, spending Wednesday evenings with my great-grandmother, who would pop popcorn with Crisco on the stove. We would eat the popcorn while making a collage out on magazine clippings.

Another food that has the same affect is blueberries. My grandparents had about ten huge blueberry bushes in their backyard when I was a child. I used to spend the longest time eating blueberries right off the bush. Nina (my grandmother) would make blueberry cobbler. It was delicious with ice cream.

Thanks to Youtube, we are now able to view television programs that we haven’t viewed in years, anytime we want. One thing I enjoy is the theme songs of cartoons I grew up with. Cartoons were awesome when I was a kid, and so where their theme songs. Nickelodeon’s Doug (the original), Rugrats, and Hey Arnold, Bill Nye the Science Guy, CatDog and Angry Beavers all have theme songs I remember so well. It always amazes me how music will stick with you.

The human brain never ceases to amaze me. It does not want to forget.

The Light Bulb

Last night a light bulb in my bedroom went out. I asked my mother where the light bulbs were, and she told me that she had received a free pack of the new, “green”, light bulbs from Wal-Mart the other day. So I replaced my traditional, rounded bulb with the new, corkscrew shaped bulb. Since the traditional light bulbs are being discontinued I started to think to myself, “My children will not know what a rounded light bulb looks like”. This made me feel sad for the old standard bulb. Pool, old, light bulb; may he rest in peace.