Oi vey.

I have been saying Oi.
A lot.

And while at first I thought it was from talking to certain friends, I also realized it couldv'e been from watching Doctor Who.

But honestly, esp this morning, I had multiple Oi moments.

First off.
I got sunburned at the Bro-Am Saturday. Nothing I havent dealt with before but it hurts and its just..bleh.
My mom was putting aloe/burn stuff on me this morning and shes all "oh no. there are blisters. this is third degree sunburn"
OI.

Cause thats JUST what I wanted to hear.

Next:
My friend procrastinated on buying tickets for Comic-Con or finding a way to get in for free.
And more tickets were posted today but he had work and was calling me, having me sit here and trying to figure it out.
I could not figure it out.
I was looking at wrong things and then it said it was sold out and just...
Oi.

In the end, I was able to buy his pass for it and all but..Oi oi.

And THEN.
Anberlin has an album coming out in September.
They posted a new song/video early today on twitter.
And the twitvid wouldnt work for me.
I think I was literally saying "OI!" to the computer every five minutes.

In the end, yes it got resolved. The thing finally let me login and watch it and then someone was nice enough to post it on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9U3aGUyvU


so, in short.
My new favorite word is Oi.
and while a lot of things this morning started out frustrating and bad..some good has come back with it.

Well...not the sunburn. not yet. It should tan over soon.

Whats your favorite word?

Best...(My own) Words.

Since I read those blogs I posted yesterday I cant get the thought about words out of head.

How big and huge and important they are. How they impact us daily. Every hour second of every minute of hour of day of week of...

Words are huge.

Like in the Anne Jackson blog-it close to home for me because I got teased in Elemantary school.
Somedays Im still not sure why.
I mean I was this little nerdy girl with glasses who hung out with either guys or nobdy 90% of the time. And then I have this kind of infamous last name. It didnt help that while I was in Elemantary school this ketchup brand that my last name is close to came out with new brands of Ketchup providing much more nicknames for me.

Point is, I know how words can hurt. Heck. I taught about in Kids church just this much. How the "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" phrase isnt always true.

And that stuff when I was a kid. It doesnt hurt me now. I can for the most part brush it off.
But when you're 9, 10..and hitting puberty before anybody else?
Yea. I can safely say it impacted me.

But I know the good of words too.

I know, many times over, how it feels or what happens when you listen to a song and your heart responds to every line.
I know what happens when you go to church and pray and break down because the pastor or someone praying said a word or phrase that you needed to hear, that God wanted you to be there to hear it that day.

Words are big-receiving and giving. Having a little brother, Ive learned when I go far.
Having friends who are girls-Ive learned it.
In middle school, I started to loathe drama and realized painfully in High School how it was created by spoken rumors just spun out of control-and of course spoken by word of mouth over and over and over.

But its not like we can close our ears to not words, not close our mouths to not say them. It is an essential human thing.

Jon foreman wrote how when you say word and an image comes to mind, it is a placeholder.

If I said brownie-is it not an image of your favorite kind in your head? Not the word itself?

Maybe Im finding the writer in myself but Jon's paragraph struck me so deep and true.

I don't write songs when I'm happy. When I'm content, I take my wife out to dinner, I go surfing. I hang out with my friends and play ridiculous cover tunes when I'm happy. But when I'm depressed, I turn to look for something beyond this life. When I'm lonely and nothing makes sense and the world has lost it's flavor I search for notes and words that usher in a transcendence that soars high above the tragedy. I look for to song to understand the present tragedy in the context of a hope for a better world. I look for words that remind me of a bigger story, for songs that acknowledge the tragedy and move beyond it. I look to artists who give me windows, words that provide for a new life to be birthed within me.

Is it escape? Is it a coping mechanism? Maybe a bit, but I feel that it is much more than that. The song becomes a hopeful defiance. A declaration that the injustices and absurdities of our postmodern existence are not the final downbeat. Music becomes a confession of disbelief in the world that surrounds me. A refusal to believe that these tragedies and horrors are the ultimate end. A refusal to accept the oppression of the Dalit's as anything other than tragic. A nonacceptance that the starving six year old is anything other than tragic. The song is written in defense of a world beyond this one, in defense of Truths that seldom make it to the front page of the newspaper. Words create worlds.

I bolded out what hit me most.

Words are so big. We need to eb careful how we use them. The world needs it. We need it. You AND me.

Best...Words.

Maybe the universe is trying to send me a message.

But I read two blogs back to back the other night, both on the power of words. So Im sharing them.

The first is by Anne Jackson. Its on the power of words and it def hit home for me.

For most of my life, I’ve been an extremely sensitive person. I also had a terribly awkward last name growing up, so it was easy to make fun of the goofy girl with big teeth and big eyes and a funny last name.

I spent a lot of my elementary school days crying alone in my room, brooding on whatever harsh words were spoken to me by my classmates.

In high school, I grew out of the big teeth (I actually quite like my teeth now), and found myself in academics and sports. I was in the National Honor Society, was identified by the Duke University talented program in the seventh grade, aced my honors classes, and excelled at basketball. Our family settled into Abilene for a few years while I was in high school and I made good friends that I still adore today. I didn’t get made fun of much then, or as I blossomed into an adult and into a couple of different careers.

My mom always prayed that I would have a sensitive heart, and now as I share it in a world where thousands can read and voice their own opinion, my skin has become soft again.

Words move me in dramatic ways – both positive, and negative.

Read the rest here.

And the second is by Jon Foreman.
He wrote a third article for the Huffington Post. Maybe its cause he's one of my heros of sorts and I try to write in a similar manner but it also struck a few chords with me.

Communication is a pregnancy of sorts. In a speaker's mind, a thought is conceived, then spoken, heard, and then ultimately gives birth to new thought in the listener's mental landscape. For example, when I say "tree," a picture builds in your imagination, a new life-form within your mind; a platonic idea of oak or maple appears out of nothing within your thoughts. This mental icon represents your understanding of the word. (Incidentally, this apprehension is independent of the speaker's intentions).

In many ways, words are metaphors pointing to the objects they represent. The word "tree" is not a tree; it is simply a placeholder for the real thing. Our understanding of the world is built upon a deeper set of presuppositions. Meaning demands meaning. Reason demands reason: 1+1=2, only when we agree upon the meaning of these symbols. The same is true for words. Words are our framework of meaning. Every one is a metaphor reaching to something beyond it's simple spelling and articulation.

Read the rest here.
The first two blogs on Huffington are also here and here.