suzzzannasuzzzannaReligion, Christianity, news, social justice, links, theology. Articles
* * *
2007-12-04 06:32:00 Bright city lights blind tired brown eyesStark contrast separating black and whiteBe gone. Be grown. Begin anew. Alone.Mom, dad, aunt, uncle, grandmother--a secretWell-kept, unsaid, untold, and un-rememberedForgotten?--No. Forbidden to be known.
America's Next Top Model Covergirl Commercial
2007-11-29 09:31:00 I admit. I watch America's Next Top Model . It's quite entertaining, actually. I started watching it this past summer when they had endless marathons of it on MTV. Now you know why I look, talk, and walk like a model...eh-hem.Anyway, Maija and I were so impressed with their pathetic attempts to do a Covergirl commercial this past week that we figured we would try it ourselves. And by that I mean that I decided to make Maija try, just for fun. It's super corny, but here's the best take.And here's my favorite take. I love how it looks as though she completely disappears at the end. Priceless! More About: Commercial
Eyebrows
2007-11-20 13:49:00 This is Madonna's daughter, Lourdes. She needs to pluck her eyebrows and to do something about that mustache. And I'm not even saying this to be mean! I realize she's just a kid. I realize that the contemporary understanding of "beautiful" is both retarded and ridiculous. BUT... While I never had a mustache, I know what it's like to look at your childhood photos and realize you used to have a very unattractive unibrow that you inherited from your Algerian father! According to Perez Hilton, Lourdes' Kabbalist parents refuse to give their kids presents, don't allow them to watch TV or eat junk food. I say, to each her own, but please, please, please, start plucking the kid's eyebrows! In my four years of studying theology, I have not come across the idea that this is a sin in any religion. More About: Eyebrows , Eyebrow
Transgendered My Mom!
2007-11-16 16:45:00 So, occasionally--and by that I mean about a dozen times a day--I check my Xanga Footprints page. It tells me the location of my site visitors as well as how they found me. Most of the time people find my site through seeing me mentioned on one of my friends' blogs or through doing a "suzzzanna" Google search. While this last one is kind of creepy, I supposed I can live with it. Sometimes, in rare instances, people find me when they are looking for information on Belarus, politics, or religion.Since the last few entries have basically been me ranting about how people mistake me for a boy, I used words like "gender" and "transgendered." Oh yeah, and I also had this one post about not knowing anything about my health history because I have always relied on my mom for this kind of information. Hence the new way to find me on Google. Simply input this phrase "transgendered my mom." How lovely!I actually checked it, and as it turns out, this only comes up on the Mexican Google (http://w... More About: Transgendered , Tran
In Sickness?
2007-10-06 08:14:00 Who knows when it started? It could have been all those times when, as a little girl who got sick often, I was kindly ordered to get up early in the morning, get ready and be prepared to leave by a certain inhumane time. Like at 7. Or maybe it started when my entire class had to do the yearly health check-up and I was forced to be in the company of my loud obnoxious classmates all day long in the unfriendly Soviet-looking hospital. Or better yet, perhaps it was that one time when the lady who was taking my blood asked me some question and I answered with a first person plural pronoun?I began my answer with "we" instead of "I". The lady laughed at me and asked howcome I considered myself so important as to refer to myself in the plural. She didn?t understand that I hated hospitals and medicine and always wanted my Mom to come with me. And when Mom was asked a question about me, she would answer with a "we". See now? I?m not crazy. Just a little confused and intimidated by you, peop... More About: Sickness
Animals on Hands
2007-09-22 13:30:00 Check out animals drawn on hands. Pretty cool. More About: Animals , Hands
James Hefferman: A Prayer to the President of America
2007-09-15 04:01:00 Our Father, which art in the White House, hallowed be thy name. HuffIt --> Thy empire come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in the Oval Office. Give us this day our daily dead, And forgive us our trespasses against your credibility as we attack them who dare to even think of attacking us. And lead us not into the temptation to cut and run But deliver us from the evil of diplomacy. For thine is the empire, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, War without end. Amen.Link More About: America , President , Prayer , James , The President
The Gender Confusion
2007-09-04 06:05:00 Turns out that Americans are not the only people who take me for a boy. Since being back in Europe I have been called "young man" and "boy" for about nine hundred million times. And let me tell you, each time it ticks me off. Although, there are definitely some pluses to it. Such as... if I ever decide to become a transgendered person, it will be really easy to do. And then also... wait, no, that's it!So, I wanted to offer my readers a little visual aid in my apparently-already-begun transformation. Here's Suzanna when she was, oh, I don't know, a seventeen-year-old girl...And then here she is, four years later, when she became a twelve-year-old boy... Congratulations, world, you win. I give up. More About: Gender , Confusion , The G
You Know You Are Going East When...
2007-08-30 16:14:00 I flew home from the States today. For the third time. And for the third time I experienced a gradual decrease in friendliness, customer service, and clean air the farther east I moved.The flight from Denver to DC went just fine. It was a large plane with lots of people wanting to hop off and run to catch their next plane, which made it a little less pleasant for all of us. I felt some definite tension between me and this girl who looked like she was a tennis player as we pressed against each other's irritated bodies trying to squeeze by another slow person in the isle. At least she was cute.Eight or nine hours later I found myself in Frankfurt. And by found I mean, found, literally. I had to look hard in order to see my legs and arms because of how much smoke surrounded me when I came out of my gate. Evidently, Camel is a popular cigarette brand because they had what I assumed to be free Camel smoking stands all over the Frankfurt International Airport. What's up with that? Was I... More About: East , Going , Goin
Twenty-One
2007-08-08 19:33:00 So, I'm beginning to doubt that I'm really twenty-one since CLEARLY I don't even look fourteen! Jennifer and I went to Wal-Mart today and I wanted to get some beer. I had my International Student Identity Card and wanted to give it to the lady at the check-out. First, she didn't even act like she wanted to take it from me. She looked at the beer and asked, "For you?" in a really high-pitched voice that expressed both amazement and disbelief."Yes, here's my ID."The lady took a look at it, entered some digits into her system, handed it back to me and said, "Is this your big sister or something?""No, it's me. I promise!"The lady kept shaking her head in disbelief while Jennifer told her basically my whole life story. Like that fact that I was from Belarus and that the ID is a European student card... The lady must have thought that she was going crazy and inquired whether Jennifer's twins were my babies.So, I have a question: do I really not look like I could be twenty-one? More About: Twenty , Went
Dear Mr. President
2007-08-03 01:23:00 Speaking of music and politics, what do you think of the following song? More About: President , Resident
What Would You Do?
2007-07-10 17:31:00 Say you are making a two-hundred-dollar purchase. Say the person at the cash register is a little overwhelmed and forgets to check out one twenty-dollar item but reminds you to take it. Say you take a half-hour drive home, look at the receipt and realize that there has been a mistake. What do you do?You could go back and ask a random person at a cash register to charge you for the item. Would they think you were crazy? You could talk to the manager about it. What would this say about your motivation? And since it was a mistake on their part, would they give it to you for free anyway? Would the person who checked you out get in trouble? What would YOU do?
Kayaking
2007-06-27 18:24:00 An afternoon of kayaking at Carter lake. Thanks for the pictures, Jen! More About: Kaya
Which Theologian Are You?
2007-06-26 20:10:00 You scored as Jürgen Moltmann, The problem of evil is central to your thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about.Anselm100% Jürgen Moltmann100% Paul Tillich67% Friedrich Schleiermacher33% Karl Barth33% John Calvin33% Charles Finney0% Augustine0% Jonathan Edwards0% Martin Luther0% Which theologian are you?created with QuizFarm.com More About: Logi , Theo , Theologian
Sunday, June 24, 2007
2007-06-24 20:51:00 В грузин ;ской школе учител ;ь- мужчин ;а провод ;ит урок физкул ;ьтуры. Девочк ;и крутят ; обручи ;. На Манану ; обруч не налеза ;ет. Учител ;ь: - Манана ;! Персик ;! Не порть фигуру ;! Иди домой! More About: June , Sunday
Missions
2007-06-20 01:40:00 The Onion has a great piece on why some missions should never take place. More About: Missions , Mission , Missi
Homosexuality & The Church: Two Views
2007-06-19 14:03:00 This Commonweal article features a debate between a New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson and a freelance writer Eve Tushnet on the topic of same-sex relationships. Surprisingly, while Johnson argues for a reform in the current position of the Church on the issue, the openly lesbian Tushnet sides with the traditional position of the Roman Catholic church. More About: Views , Homosexuality , The Church , Ality
Sodom
2007-06-13 15:50:00 "The Real Sin of Sodom " by Kim FabriciusGive this sermon a read! More About: Odom
Auntie?!
2007-06-12 23:11:00 So my friends and I go to a local flea market to check it out. I want to try on some sunglasses. So, I pick up a pair, put them on, look in the mirror and hear: "Show them to your mommy" from a Vietnamese-looking girl who works at the stand. "She's not my mom," I answer briskly."Oh, sorry," the Asian voice continues, "...Auntie?!""Nope, not my aunt either.""Oh, sorry. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry.""She is a friend," Jennifer finally tells her.The girl is clearly embarrassed and keeps apologizing as we walk away.Lesson #1 for the world to learn: ALWAYS KNOW WHEN TO SHUT UP.Lesson #2: SHORT HAIR DOESN'T EQUAL TWELVE-YEAR-OLD BOY!
What the World Eats
2007-06-05 16:57:00 What 15 different families from all around the world eat over a week and how much they spend on it. Fascinating! More About: World , The World
Pictures
2007-06-04 21:31:00 I've started a Flickr account to keep my family and friends updated on what is going on with me this summer. Access it at the following address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suzzzanna More About: Pictures
Memory Test
2007-05-17 16:56:00 To test your short-term memory, go here and take this test. It says that an average twenty-year-old will remember 7 out of 15 words and an average eighty-year-old will remember 4. How about you?Despite of what some of my friends say about my "extraordinary memory," it's not all that extraordinary after all, since I could only remember 10 out of 15. I guess this is better than your average person. But then again, the average person is usually an idiot anyway.Credit to Lifehacker.com for the link. More About: Memory , Test , Memo
God and I
2007-05-17 15:56:00 I've been thinking about God lately. Well, no, the correct thing to say would be that I haven't been thinking about God all that much lately, and so when I do, it's kind of a big deal and even deserves its own special Xanga entry. Of course, being a theology major I am forced to think and talk about God a lot. I also read lots of theology books and Bible dictionaries. I am subscribed to and read a bunch of theology, philosophy and biblioblogs. I even open my Bible once in a while to see if what I had just presented as scripture and built my argument on is actually in it. But I no longer relate to God in any way. Not even in church. Again, sure, I discuss the history of Christian thought about the Trinity or Jesus' nature, but I rarely take any of this to heart. My discussions stay on a purely intellectual level and hardly affect my non-existent "spiritual life," as they call it in the Campus Crusade for Christ circles. And I don't think that it is such a bad thing. I remember...
A Clever Criticism of [a Certain Kind of] Religion
More articles from this author:2007-05-16 08:25:00 Religion has convinced people that there is an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire, and smoke, and burning, and torture, and anguish where he will send you to live, and suffer, and burn, and choke, and scream, and cry forever and ever, till the end of time? But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money. He always needs money. He is all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing and all-wise. Somehow, he just can?t handle money! -- George Carlin, "You Are All Diseased" More About: Religion , Ever , Criticism , Gion , Clever 1, 2, 3 |
|
 |
|
 |
