A Dread-ful Situation? (Part one of two)

Recently in a conversation, one of my friends wondered aloud, "how do you start dreadlocks?"
I half-jokingly answered, "well, if you're me, you just don't brush your hair for a week."

I am not sure how normal people start dreadlocks. Honestly, I am not sure why anyone does. But every few days in the shower I vigorously apply conditioner to one or two 3-or-so-inch sections of my hair that have managed to work themselves into a dreadlock sort of state. My mind fluctuates between wanting to give up and just grow dreads, and disgustedly wondering why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. Of course, my being in my right mind is still something of a debate, so the two are not necessarily irreconcilable.

Perhaps in our search for understanding, we should look at the word itself: dreadlocks. A compound word. Locks, obviously, refers to one's hair. This is not to be confused with lox. Occasionally, this word is preceded by an adjective. For example, see Goldilocks. She had yellow (gold) hair. Or maybe she had the new iHair from Apple, available in a multitude of colours, including but not limited to gold! pink! black! (Actually, it turns out, after a brief search [yay for google!] that iHair is not an Apple product at all, but a hair-loss solution. Apple should take over their business, if only for the name's sake.)
ahem. I digress.
Now: the word DREAD. According to dictionary.com, dread means "to fear greatly, to be in extreme apprehension of." Does not exactly sound pleasant.
Hair that is to be feared. And I do, oh I do...
Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Like a Ray of Sunshine

Beauty from the 4-D Design Class, Part Two

I am uncertain who took the balcony of the library as their spot, but it made me very happy every time I walked by. There is not really much to say about this one - it really speaks for itself. A new colour/piece went up each day. It makes me joyful. Well done.

.



(from further away)















(from closer up)

I wish I had taken pictures on a more sunny day, because it looks even more cheerful then. But you can see even with the overcast sky the simple beauty of this project.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

My Favourite

Beauty from the 4-D Design Class, Part One

The first of the 4-D design projects that I will report on belongs to my dear friend Robin Zimmerman. She chose, as the place to make her own, MY spot. After discovering this, I graciously lent it to her ; )

Besides this being my absolute favourite place on campus, I love what Robin did with it! The swing was so exciting to find, and I was privileged to be present as she was decorating the fence with those gorgeous autumn leaves (too rare hereabouts). The papers bound to the tree are poems. There is, as seen, a nice bench if swinging does not catch your fancy. The tupperware contains some of her favourite books that have good references to nature and beauty, and the box was a "take something, leave something" sort of thing. If you can not tell, Robin loves teal/turquoise. she made all of the wooden furnishings herself. The teal makes a striking contrast that I absolutely love, with the mild, muted colours of autumn.

I love this display of beauty so much. Bravo, Robin! I hope my few (if any?) readers are able to appreciate your hard work and eye for goodness as much as I have.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Preliminaries

Well, first things first.

Who? Me. Emily.
What? Creating a blog.
Where? On the internet. At blogger.com. In my room.
When? 28 October 2006.
How? A lovely little tutorial that blogger happens to have.
Why? Well, here is the important part, after all.

Why am I creating this blog?

Why the name Itsy-Bitsy Emu?

Why choose the pink template?
The first two of these questions I am prepared to answer. As for the third, I have no idea. A moment of temporary insanity, if you will.

I just came through three great days of the second annual GodBlogCon at Biola University, created and hosted by one of my programs here, the Torrey Honors Institute. Yay! Last year I only really found out about the conference after it had happened, which is strange considering how involved I am in Torrey. This year I managed to attend about two-thirds of the sessions. I have never had a serious blog before, just a semi-anonymous xanga where I occasionally post song-lyrics and emotional tirades. So, I have never properly blogged before. And participating in this conference made me feel like I ought to. So now I have it, for real this time. Now the challenge is will be to actually post every once in a while, as well as the whole "will people actually read this?" anxiety that one goes through.

Why did I name my site Itsy-Bitsy Emu? Well. This past summer, while in Europe with forty amazing wonderful people (on the Torrey Europe trip), Dr. Reynolds decided to nick-name me Emu. I don't know why. I probably never will. For a day or so he was debating between Emu and Aravis (lovely character from Lewis' book The Horse and his Boy) and I dearly wish Aravis had won out. But Dr. Reynolds is one of those people who gives nick-names to those whom he likes, so I will take it as a compliment and deal with it. As for the itsy-bitsy part, well...I'm short. And here is a wikipedia article. Emus are seven feet tall. I'm five feet tall. So...yes. That is all the explanation that I have for you. It's a fun name and relates to me, and now I have a paper to look after.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily