An Everyday Alien

Oh hey, it's a blog post! Bet you didn't see that coming... Also, I changed the layout - because the old one was kind of rubbish, and this one's rather nice and shiny.

So, something struck me the other day. God's grace is like jazz piano.

Bear with me.

In my final year of high school, I joined the swing band as a pianist. I was Grade 6 piano, classically trained, so pretty good at it - that is, pretty good at playing a piece by myself after practising it for months. Now, jazz piano in a band setting? Suddenly, I felt out of my depth. Lots of crunchy chords, often fast-paced music, keeping up with the rest of the band, and improvisation. Woah, a lot to handle, and a very different style to what I was used to.

However there was something my clarinet teacher used to say that encouraged me whenever I got stressed out about not playing the piece note-perfect - "It's okay - it's jazz! It will sound fine." And truth be told, she was right. Jazz, as a genre, and especially in the swing-band context we were playing in, is incredibly forgiving towards wrong notes. Accidentally adding in extra notes in chords just adds tension, odd accidentals in solos can be recovered from without it sounding in any way wrong, and indeed, a slightly messy performance is often considered part of the charm.

God's grace - yep, I'm coming to it. God's grace is like jazz. In the realm of jazz, you can make mistakes, but the music isn't any less beautiful. And in the same way, under God's grace, despite all our mistakes and failures we can still be considered beautiful, not just by each other but by the Composer Himself. Isn't that amazing?

(All right, it's not a perfect analogy. But it made me smile!)

Back just before the general election, I wrote a blog post. It was about how I saw David Miliband and Nick Clegg speak before the election, and what I made of each one. I wrote most of it and promptly forgot to actually post it. Oops.

Anyway, the gist of it was that despite leaning towards the Liberal Democrats at that point in time, I was fairly disappointed with Nick Clegg, and a lot more impressed by David Miliband. Whatever he was asked, Clegg seemed to do the politician thing of bending the answer around to fit his party lines, and rattling off the same old catch-phrases. It felt more like a rehearsed performance than a conversation, which was a shame.

However I was reminded why I really like David Miliband as a politician today when I saw him again at a Q&A session at the Durham Union Society.

He took each question and answered it directly, referring to recent events and explaining them, and when relevant his own involvement (the only questions he avoided were ones pertaining to what may have happened if he won the Labour leadership election - understandable, really :P). He was also not afraid to say where Labour and Tory policies overlap, pointing out that there are elements of the Conservative 'Big Society' picture that Labour are completely behind, such as local empowerment - like Movement for Change, which is something David Miliband set up and mentioned in his address.

He also spoke about how government should really be concerned with the medium- to long-term well-being of the country, rather than simply trying to win the next election all of the time, which is rather refreshing to hear (although one does wonder how much this would actually be the case, even if Labour were in power).

There was also one moment, when asked about the obesity problem, when he paused for a few moments, finally saying quietly, "I don't know." He then went on to talk about the issue and his personal feelings on it, but I appreciated his pause to actually consider the question and humility to admit that he didn't know the answer instead of covering it up with bluster and taking the question back to party mantras.

You won't be surprised to hear then that I really like David Miliband and I think he is one of my favourite politicians. So, am I a Labour supporter? Well, no, not really. To be honest, I don't find myself very enthused by any of the parties at the moment. But people like him keep me hopeful for politics in general.

Hi everyone! I'm going to reiterate my apology for not posting more here, but since I've prepended it to so many blog posts now I guess you can just assume I say it for every post hence, haha. In fact, it's been so long since I last posted that I am watching Ouran High School Host Club *again*, this time with my boyfriend, and we're enjoying it immensely.

But this is not the reason I post.

Lately, Emmanuel Church has been running a Sunday evening service called Inside Out, which is an initiative to promote discipleship amongst ourselves and to figure out ways we can reach out and help our local community. I think a trap a lot of churches fall into is that they become inward looking and selfish as a group. But God has called us to serve and to love our neighbours, and who are more our neighbours than our local community?

So from a few weeks ago, we have been discussing issues that affect people that we might be able to help in, ranging from homelessness to youth work, from caring for the sick to helping people with addictions. It's been great so far, and I'm incredibly excited for the coming weeks and for whatever I end up involved in.

In these evening meetings we're also receiving teaching on Ephesians 1 and what exactly it means to be adopted by God. Something James said tonight really resonated with me. He said that Jesus is our older brother.

See, we know that God is our father, and for some people that's a really important knowledge, especially if they have had issues one way or another with their earthly father. However for me it was this sudden realisation that this means that Jesus is my big brother that really hit home.

I've always been the oldest, family-wise. I have two younger sisters, and all my first cousins are younger than me. But when growing up, especially in my teenage years, I became captivated by the idea of a cool older brother. I really wanted one. I think I blame Michael Moscovitz from the Princess Diaries books. But seriously, I really liked the idea of someone who was going through life just a little bit ahead of me and could advise me on what to do, and was a boy because I already had two sisters.

This isn't childhood trauma. I am in no way bothered by the fact that I don't have an older brother (although there is always the interesting scenario when I've had a crush on an older guy and I'm not sure whether I fancy him or just subconsciously think he'd make a cool big brother - yeah, I'm weird like that). My dear parents, do not be concerned about me or your lack of sons. But it was just a thing that was in my mind.

So, what James said really hit home because I suddenly I realised that if I am adopted into God's family, then Jesus is my cool big brother. And I don't think I could ever have an older brother cooler than that. It's not even a life-changing revelation. Just something that made me sit up and think, "Wow."

Well, I'm sure you've had enough of the strange inner workings of my head for now. Ta ta for now, and hopefully I'll work up the oomph to blog more regularly again sometime soon...

More Maelstrom awesomeness!

For Noah:
- Getting into the Bitter Moon teahouse again! Twice!
- Almost becoming the subject of a supplication, then not (awwww)
- BUILDER TENT
- Ishtar's becoming an imam ceremony
- The bad guys - you were all fantastic at being very scary, even when I didn't see any of you!
- Lunch on Saturday, being in charge of the barbecue and meeting the Gerosons, who were wonderful
- The golden brood - specifically Mei - going way up in Noah's books (you taught WHO?! :O)
- Pottering around with Sha with a shaker and a flute that I could actually play
- Getting 'ambushed' by KP, and the guilt that followed
- Flambard - stopping by for ginger beer and brandyblend, and making friends (yay, I can stop by Flambard more often! :D)
- The Freeloaders for their hospitality and the cricket try-outs - you guys were amazing, and great fun to hang out with
- The Jade Lotus - the Weaverite meeting was fun as usual, plus the ridiculous 'tai chi' session beforehand!
- Strike for single-handed causing Noah to get angry enough to rant in the Builder shrine afterwards and pray angry prayers at the Soldier. First major outburst from her, bit of a turning point in character development. Also, picture of Ishtar striking Strike!
- Raoul and Amelia for causing no end of angst
- Drake, Crossed Keys, Bastet, Weaverites and Builderites in general for being awesome :)

For Heidi:
- Playing a secondary, and getting Noah's worries out of my head
- The marching band! I think we did great, hope everyone heard us all right, the procession with all the torches was amazing!
- Trolling Jan Andreas so hard with the Jan Andreas Frieboden Youth League 3rd Saren Division
- Giving Anton lots of angst >:D
- Being told to carry a weapon and getting to roam around the field in the dark, something I could never do with my primary as she is
- Demon-hunting stories!
- Seeing the Builderite lot go past a few times and thinking "What a bunch of weirdos!"
- Staying up until three in the morning, singing and having a great time
- Frieboden generally and seeing what it was like on the other side of the field

OOC:
- Finding an excellent mace!
- The coconut ice from the Ethic Food guys - so good!
- Meeting folk over Saturday breakfast

The not-so-good:
- Missing the result of Ishtar's vision quest and the Weaverite supplication in Kamakura (although secondarying was worth it)
- Hayfever - I never knew I suffered from it any more until now!
- Being unsure about whether or not I should have taken a certain damage call and feeling a little guilty that I didn't, although it didn't really affect anything

I like finding common themes in my life. It feels more like a narrative that way, that there is a plot and direction instead of an aimless trudge from one day to the next, it makes me feel part of a big picture. Very appealing to my author sensibilities.

Anyway, one I've realise recently is the theme of unity, which is a little special because it's been encroaching on not only my own life but the lives of the characters I play as well, which is both amusing and thought-provoking.

For example:

In real life, I have been following the Rally to Restore Unity led by Rachel Held Evans, an effort to help bring about Christian Unity inspired by the Rally to Restore Sanity that took place a while back. I'm a fan of both efforts, but I found it really interesting and enlightening to encounter people's thoughts on Christian unity, what it means, what it doesn't mean, how it can be accomplished and what might be standing in our way. Take a look, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. And funny signs.

On the topic of religious unity, that's exactly what my character at Maelstrom was involved in - at least two of the faiths began huge ventures to bring their various splinter groups together (with the aim of stopping the end of the world I think it was easier in this case to find common ground). My character certainly threw herself into it and by the end of the weekend had even HUGGED A DRAGON. Which she definitely wouldn't have done before that festival.

And finally, I'm in an Exalted Alchemicals game, in which my character is called Strand of Hidden Unity (Unity for short), and who is having a great deal less success in world peace, but her concept still revolves around that, with the motivation to create a utopia.

This is all making me incredibly cheerful, because it's a theme I resonate quite strongly with anyway, personally. And it is with that cheeriness that I will stop procrastinating and go back to my revision now...

Obligatory Maelstrom froth post. Because this event was amazing beyond belief.

So, here was what was awesome:
- Ptolemy's funeral, and the brief awakening of the gut-wrenching terror Noah has of the afterlife
- The hen(na) night, and the ladies (and priests) who turned up. Thanks to Sha for the henna!
- A brief conversation with Nefertiri (even more moving in retrospect, as it was our last)
- The Monday morning shock of Nefertiri's death, and my first actual IC breakdown into tears (then getting hugged lots)
- Some one-to-one time with my Imam, Builder jenga and noticing something that made me smile
- The wedding, unexpected spontaneity, the well-wishers and the feast. Oh, and an eidolon turned up (wooo!)
- The seraph's tear wearing off, and the misery and regret that caused
- Saturday night at the Scholars, a few more tears, then a bit more happiness and singing, and growing more and more sure about that thing I noticed
- The Weaverite meeting, once again wonderful, discussing religious and world-ending (and world-saving) matters
- The supplication
- Running around after Ishtar afterwards (and getting that thing I noticed confirmed - squee!)
- The reading of the martyrs meeting
- The Smithite supplication in the evening - BOOM BOOM!
- Shaking hands with a dracosian, shaking hands with a dragon, hugging a dragon. AAAAHHHH.
- The Flembic Lower City. You guys rock.
- Finally deciding, IC and OC, on a definite path for Noah.

Not so awesome:
- Almost fainting in the GOD queue Friday afternoon. Many thanks to the First Aiders, they were incredibly friendly and helpful and got water, sugar and salt inside me.
- The wedding feast being continually interrupted by Fallen was annoying, and most people left, although I appreciate it was definitely fun for others
- I keep reacting IC to OC annoyances, stopitbraindammit
- I did not want this event to end, it was that amazing. Wow, PD. Wow, everyone.

I've got a lab report to write. And I'm still in that stage where boredom trumps fear, and I'm scrabbling to find something - anything - to occupy myself that isn't this report.

So, I turn to my much-neglected blog. What shall I talk about?

I've recently watched (and then read) through the entirety of Ouran High School Host Club, a funny and satirical shoujo anime/manga following Haruhi Fujiyoka, a poor scholarship student at a school for the rick and elite, who gets roped into the host club after she accidentally breaks a valuable vase belonging to them in order to repay her debt.

It's a surprisingly entertaining story, and one that resonated with me for several reasons. Firstly, I'm a big fan of parody and fourth-wall breaking, and this seems to take every single shoujo and romance cliche and affectionately mock it, from revealing the total unhinged-ness of 'ideal man' fantasies in real life, to a recurring character who will appear out of nowhere and actively point out common tropes as they crop up in the story, as well as characters arguing over who the romantic leads are in this anime anyway.

Also, I love Haruhi. Her bluntness shows up every single trick the men use to impress their female clientele, and her complete indifference to appearance and gender is incredibly refreshing in a lead character. Indeed, gender and gender roles are a common theme of the story - it's very premise is a fairly androgynous girl who cross-dresses as a guy in order to be a part of the host club, not to mention her transvestite father, or the 'zuka club' (look up Takarazuka) and their hyper-feminism. Just having a character who doesn't really mind how she is seen is nice (even if she does end up looking like a rather handsome young man for the majority of the time).

I could go into it more, but I think I'll just leave you with the recommendation. I have... *sigh* ...a lab report to write.