I Have A Dream, A Song To Sing

- ABBA (coincidentally, Martin Luther King Jr. also said something along those same lines)

I can't honestly recall what, as a child, I thought my life would be like when I was in my early twenties. Did I think I would be successful? Did I think I would have gotten a good education that would lead to a rewarding career? Did I think I'd be married and have babies by now? Did I even think about "what will life be like in 10 years"?

I do distinctly remember back at the turn of the century (yes, the 22nd century) everyone asking us kids what they thought would happen in 10 years, 2010. The majority pretty much said flying cars, and I was probably guilty of making that same suggestion. Obviously that didn't happen. (But why didn't we think self-driving cars were feasible??)

Anyway, my point is that I'm not sure I ever really had a "plan" for my life, or a vision of how I thought it would go. I always figured I'd go to university because that's what everyone else was doing. (Now I have a bachelor's.) Despite a few months where I thought I was destined to be an old cat lady, I always did want to get married. (Get a husband, check!) And it's obvious that I would strive to have a good job, whether you want to call it a career or not. (Library technicians ftw.)

But even though I sort of half-expected all of that stuff, most of what is now a part of my life came in a most unexpected way. Meeting someone on the internet who you would later marry? Getting a job without any of the necessary education simply because you were willing to try? Becoming best friends with someone who would eventually help you publish your first book?

All of that is so crazy that it certainly belongs in a book. It feels surreal to say that all of those things are about me, but it's true. I almost can't handle it. I mean... where do I even go from there? Everything is already just so... perfect.

Of course, nothing is really perfect. By the time I get bored of seeing my first book, I'll be ready to publish my second one. Gina will always have things to read and edit for me. Eli will always remain my number one source for love and affection and there isn't a thing I would change about that.

I guess all I'm really saying is that life is absolutely unexpected. Things always seem to work out, but never the way I necessarily want them too. For example, I never really wanted to go to university, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have met some of my best friends, including Gina and Eli. I never would have gotten to the point with my writing where I could actually publish something. And that means more to me and any degree I could ever hold. Period.

I just know that sometimes I'll have to refer back to this particular blog post when something is not going my way, just to remind myself that it'll work out in the end. Because it always kind of does.

I'll cross the stream. I have a dream.

So Tell Me What You Want to Hear

- OneRepublic

Here's a little secret about myself: I don't actually think I suck. I mean, I have my days where I do something stupid, or I find out I'm really not good at something. But on the whole, I think I'm a pretty awesome person.

Why, then, do people get so offended when I say something like "My sisters are prettier than me"?* People get some wacked out idea that I think I'm ugly. Trust me - I am not ugly. I've been told my whole life how pretty I am. So saying that my sisters are prettier than me is not an insult to myself, but rather a really big compliment to them. Do I say it with jealousy in my voice? Do I on some sub-conscious level have some Lucy-like ambition to be just like my sisters? Do I think I'm ugly?

If you answered no to all of the above, congratulations. You won. Now stop telling me how much I hate myself.

Seriously. If I said something like, "I'm not as smart as Bill Gates," people would be like "Well, no, of course not." But if I say, "I'm not smart like my fiance is," people start getting all sympathetic. I don't think I'm stupid, and I can't remember ever having said that in recent times. So relax.

There are things I'm good at, and there are countless other people who are much better at those things than I am. I think it's a pretty healthy attitude to be able to admit when other people are better-looking, smarter, or more talented than me. It doesn't mean I hate myself. It just means I know my place. My place is here. Theirs is up there. And other people's are way down there. So what? I can handle that without others trying to "make me feel better."

I promise I'm not looking for sympathy or fishing for compliments. I'm perfectly comfortable with who I am, and with improving on the things that I think I need to improve on. People do not need to get all up in my grill when I admit that other people are better than me. Would you like me to list the number of people who can't punctuate sentences to save their lives, or make syntax flow like I can? Because I can do that if it would make you feel better. I'm just saying...

I can also use comparatives and superlatives. Watch: Natasja is pretty. Her sisters are prettier. Her next-oldest sister is the prettiest.

Yeah. I'm awesome.

It's super late and this is all I can think about.

I'm gonna give all my secrets away.






*The only person who's allowed to tell me otherwise is my fiance.

You can be a rockstar if you want to

- Tasjie, AKA yours truly

I just wanted to say that I DID IT!! I wrote (more than) 50,000 words in 30 days. That's an average of 1,667 words per day, although I never actually made that quota. In fact, in the last three days of the NaNoWriMo challenge, I wrote about 18,000 words just to finish on time. I just wanted to give a little insight on why and how I did the challenge this year.

The why part is simple, I guess. I just wanted to see if I could do it. I figured if I could write a 75,000 word book in six weeks (true story), then I could certainly write 50,000 in four. Plus, I already had a story in my head that I needed to get out. Don't worry, I didn't cheat because I didn't have any of it written down yet. I just had some characters, a general storyline, and some scenes in my head that I knew would be in it. So I figured, no big deal. Just write 1667 words a day, and you're golden.

Wrong. It does not work that way. I mean, when I started, I have a perfect beginning in my head. I got ahead of the game because I just had so much to start with. I was feeling good about it, and started taking little breathers that turned into breaks that turned into days where I couldn't or didn't write anything.

One of the things that helped me push through was my readers. I have had one faithful reader for a long time now (you know who you are, Gina), and have recently added another. And both of them are really helpful because they always end their response emails with "WRITE MORE RIGHT NOW."

A problem I had with my writing is that I start to lag in the middle. My beginnings always start out so great and fresh and I'm just so excited to have my characters. It's like the honeymoon period of writing. But then I'm like... "Where do I go now? How do I get to the beautiful ending I have in mind?" I also try really hard not to write out of order. I don't like doing it, because it can create continuity errors which are sometimes difficult to fix. This time, however, I had to break my own rule.

And that's how I made it to 50,000 words. I was running out of time, and I knew exactly what would happen in the end. So with wild abandon, I wrote the ending. And then I wrote the chapter before it, and the chapter before that. Then I went back and started writing forward again (instead of backwards). And the most amazing, crazy, and wonderful thing happened. I joined it all up! In those last three days, last 18,000 words, I wrote an ending and a middle that joined up. It was great.

And I'll be honest with you. The one other reason I made the goal was because I felt myself getting close, and I thought that if I got really close but didn't make it, I'd be super disappointed. So, neglecting my shower and writing while watching tv with the family, I pushed myself to the end. And now I'm a winner. Yay me!

You can look for my book when it comes out to a bookstore near you in the near future.

You can be you.

Just life your life

- T.I. feat. Rhihanna (with a special shout-out to O-Zone because you know it was your beat that made that song rock.)

Last night, I was feeling rather blah... like, discouraged and unsatisfied with my life. And so my fiance told me to read the bible. While I was reading, I came across these verses:

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil." [Ephesians 5:15-16]

For some reason, I had previously underlined the second half of this sentence. I quickly underlined the first part, because really they go together. It struck me as different than when I had previously read it, I guess. The first thing I thought about were those people that will tell you to just go for it, just do what you want to do, live how you want to live, "because you only get one life, baby, so you might as well."

This ideology always bothered me for some reason, but I was never really sure why. I mean, it should make sense, right? You only have one life to live, you should live it to the fullest. But there's something more to it. The fact is, it's not always wise to take all those risks, to "live the way I want." And that is why it boggles me that I didn't originally have that first part of the verse underlined.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself what you're really living for. Are you living for the never-ending party? Are you just waiting for the next big risk for you to take? Do you live recklessly because you figure a careful life would be dull and you know you won't get to re-live your life?

A better question is: are you ready to meet the end of your life?

The problem is necessarily that we go for what we want. The problem comes when we can't distinguish between a worthwhile endeavour and a fruitless one. Granted, sometimes it can be hard to tell sometimes. But usually not. Most people ignore the fact that they really are wasting time, because they want to waste their time that way. Hey, whatever you do is up to you, and I'm not going to stop you, okay?

The second verse tells us to make the "most of every opportunity." Now, if I may expand on this statement, I would like to. I don't think this literally means you need to take every single opportunity offered to you ever. That be the reason for the preceding verse, why you need to be able to discern between wise and unwise decisions.

The follow-up verse will help me out here. Verse 17 reads: "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." So if I take all three verses together, I get the idea that we are to take every opportunity to do the Lord's will. Not just taking random opportunities. That would mean, for example, that every time I walk along the road I could take the opportunity to kill myself by walking right into a car. That would be foolish and not the Lord's will.

Unfortunately, every decision isn't as easy or intuitive as whether or not I should throw myself into traffic. If it were, the world would be in a far, far better place. So how does one get to that place where every decision, every move, every opportunity is easily decided upon? Pray for wisdom, I suppose. God doesn't hold back when you ask for it, and there's no reason He shouldn't grant you wisdom to deal with life.

So I guess that's what I've been thinking about. I want to live right, but I also don't want to hold back. Obviously there is a fine line somewhere and sometimes I have a hard time finding it. Sometimes, on the other hand, it's as clear as a car coming down the street. I hope Iget a lot more like that, but I doubt I actually will.

No tellin' where it'll take ya.