tribe choices

It's something we like to say a lot.

What'd you do last night?

Studied chemistry.

Oh, that's a tribe choice. I went to wawa and watched a Star Wars marathon.

I brought sunblock!

Look who's making a tribe choice.

Yeah, that's cool I guess. We all slip into saying it sometimes. But I just started thinking about what it means. It's really not about a tribe at all. Yes, it's sort of making fun of the school for saying that we should make good decisions (aka tribe choices), but what the phrase tends to be applied to situations where the individual makes a difficult choice, something that the rest of the tribe isn't doing. Most of the good decisions we make that are worth noting (as in, not just rolling out of bed and brushing our teeth) are ones that most people don't make. The tribe choice isn't popular, gets noted with a passing comment, and then is forgotten by everyone who didn't make it. So while everyone makes these choices once in a while (making them tribe appropriate...think along the lines of twamps, which we all are sometimes even though we aren't all total nerds all of the time), it's in going against the group that we make good decisions and get called out on them. Huh.

nanowrimo

It's pronounced naa-no-rye-mo (naa as in gnat, no as in got no money, rye as in there's a gnat on my rye bread, mo as in want mo' money) and it stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every year for the past five years I've written a short novel (50,000 words or more) within the month of November (30 days). Every year I get I asked what my novels are about and if they're going to be published or whether I'll let someone read them. The answer is always "I don't know."

So here's my real answer: I do know what they're about but they're pretty weird and take a lot of explanation. They're never going to be published and they would only be read after serious editing on my part...so, never? Maybe one day I'll write a novel someone will want to read and that I'll want someone to read. To give you an idea (and to keep it for my own records), here's a rundown of the novels from memory (the first four are on my computer at home).

2005: Shadow of Forever? (Or something equally ridiculous and purposely cheesy, I don't know)

This girl in high school is preparing for her junior year and gets her schedule...only to find that her classes are the same as last year's. She complains to her counselor who sees nothing wrong and she soon finds out that everyone is repeating the previous year, which no one thinks is weird. She has a crush on this guy. Her mom gets in a car accident. She goes to this cool place with a garden and meets an interesting old lady and eventually her crush comes to her and professes his love and she's all like thank goodness that was just a dream...and then he asks her if it really was one or not. The end.

2006: One Dink Short

Set in a small town newspaper office, the editor nobody likes ends up dead in the office one morning and nobody knows why. The new reporter is asked to investigate everyone's motives and is privy to their files. Everyone has motives. Someone gets blamed after a series of questioning and he insists he's innocent. Flash forward twenty years, it turns out that the editor in chief paid the new reporter (the protagonist) for something or another. (Basically it was an elaborate plan to get rid of the editor.) Intriguing!

2007: Scripting October

Andrea is a predictable girl who works for a big corporation and has a secret crush on the owner's rogue son, Jack Scarlett (lolol perfect naming right), but she's never actually met him. She fantasizes about him being perfect and standing up to his father and taking over the company and then falling in love with her. And then she meets him and gets involved in a hostage situation? I don't even remember how it ended or why the title supposedly made sense.

2008: no idea

1920's or sometime, Chicago, a respectable studious fellow gets caught up in his mother's family, a bunch of gangsters. They decide to let him in on their plan to rob the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago, and pick him as their inside man because he has no clear connections to them. He interviews and gets the job and meets a cute girl. They become friends. Then one day he's going to work and gets caught in a shoot-out near the train. The rest of the novel is narrated from his point of view as a ghostly being, from his family's failed plans to his mother's grief to his own eulogy. He gets really depressed about being dead, but then he finally moves on.

2009: Amaranthine Doubt

Purportedly the best of the bunch, this novel follows five astronauts through their travels in space (and time?!). It's based on an alternate history in which Franz Ferdinand was never assassinated and World War 2 is fought not based on this crime but because of the great depression (which occurred for other reasons). This elevated the space race between what is essentially the EU and NAFTA, so the first craft to be sent into space does so in 1936 with these five men. What was two years for them, however, was 60 years on earth. The novel documents them realizing that they were traveling faster in time, their communications with their families, them nipping a black hole (and losing their pilot) and them trying but failing to return to earth (basically they can't slow it down without their pilot). It's narrated by each of the men in short chapters, and towards the end it's revealed that these are a series of interviews being held in 2006 by a journalist who wants to find out how the pilot died. The men are idolized and none since them have kicked into hyperdrive (so none age slowly like they do)...one says that he could fall in love with the journalist just as he did a previous correspondent, but she ends the novel saying that her life is waiting for more contact from them and that she doesn't want to fall in love, just document their story and pass it on for the next listener. It all sounds cooler than it really is, though, because everything is told passively.

So that's it. Pretty strange? They all have reasons and meanings but I'll leave those for future analysis.

becoming an adult

Why is it such a struggle for people to admit to themselves that they're adults? I want to put it off as long as possible because I feel the same way that I did last year and the year before; there is no one achievement that makes you an adult (contrary to a common belief perpetuated by various sources). I know I want to avoid major responsibility for another couple of years but I don't want to be a kid forever either. We seem to want what's worst for us, just as I'm attracted to carrot cake instead of carrots and chocolate chip banana bread instead of bananas. I mean, who needs fruit or vegetables when you can eat desserts incorporating them? Anyway, we want to make goofy memories with our friends instead of making good use of our time and responsible decisions, but we also want to be free of our parents' control. We want unhindered freedom, and that comes with adulthood--but so does responsibility for making those freedom-inspired decisions. There's nothing wrong with being a college student (taking silly pictures and staying out late even though we have to wake up at sunrise), but it has to end and nobody wants that too soon. We want to be students, and somehow we can't do that and be adults at the same time.

I think the only way to change this is a personal decision--it's a matter of perspective, after all. I think I have to recognize that I'm always going to be a student, whether formally or informally. And based on that frame of mind, I can recognize that I can be an adult and a student; therefore, I can be an adult now. Or you know, maybe in a few months.

the power of names

Everyone knows names are important. Hermione Granger wouldn't be our favorite know-it-all in quite the same way if her last name were Puckle (not a random example: Rowling originally chose this last name for her; now you know I'm a Harry Potter nerd :)). When I'm writing stories, the character names take days of deliberation: Andy Smith is not the same and cannot be thought of in the same way as Arthur Smaggasgale (Google it). Andy's a typical guy who doesn't like work...Arthur strives for perfection and wears knitted sweaters instead of baseball caps. No comparison. Arthur's a cooler character.

You know how everyone responds to their own name and it's like the most important word to them? It's true whether you have a popular or unique name: it's special to you. If someone says my name they're usually referring to me. I kind of don't like the fact that other people have friends with my name...because I don't want to be confused with anyone else.

And everyone spends time thinking names for their kids. For guys it probably starts several years after girls, but my friends have all listed some of the cool names they're thinking of...some of them are completely unique, some are unusually spelled, some have family significance. All of them are important in some way.

So what's really cool to me is that God knows us by name, and he recognizes that names are important too. Some people he gave names to before they were born and some he gave new names to in order to reflect a change. I really like in Hosea how he gives names to Hosea's children: Jezreel (as punishment for the massacre at Jezreel), Lo-Ruhamah (not loved) and Lo-Ammi (not my people). But instead of letting these names continue to describe Israel, God says he will call them by new names and says "I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God'" (Hosea 2:23). How neat is that? God changed these horrible names into promises of mercy.

But what really struck me was the importance of a name is a classic story. When Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb where Jesus had been buried, she cries because she believes someone stole his body. He appears to her and asks her who she's looking for; she responds with an even temper that if he has stolen the body she wants to know where it is so she can get him. Now here's the neat part: "Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher)" (John 20:16). He knows her by name and in the moment he says it he reveals himself to her. He doesn't say anything about himself; he chooses her name.

So it just struck me that God knows us by name - "He put the stars in the sky and he knows us by name," right? - and he knew us before we were thought of by anyone else. And if our names are so special in defining us, how much more powerful is his name? Just a thought.