shrimp

jamison is really good at writing stuff.
if you haven't read his intro / bio yet, you should. it is directly below this. he is one swell kid. you will love him if you don't already.

after reading his shpiel, i felt like my own initial intro was kind of the typical, abstract, snapshot that i offer if i open my mind or mouth. and that kind of a thing, while it is alright in that it keeps an interpretation-friendly distance between us, is not terribly conducive to the kind of community we have in mind here. so i just figured "hey! since we're all being friends and loving each other, why not let them have a chance to love whole-me instead of just photo-booth-me?"

hi. i'm shaina. i made a pact with myself to grow my hair for 3 years. it's been 2. today i wore my hair down and noticed that it is really really long. i have on Nightmare Before Christmas slippers. k, now that you have a mental image of me, here's my story:

i was born in a small city in southern sk, and coincidentally, i was also a chill baby. that was how i got my start in doing-my-own-thing i suppose. i've always been pretty happy to just entertain myself and not take anything too seriously or react hastily. i don't know if i could say i grew up with a constant like music...but if i could think of one thing my parents represented and reinforced, it'd be hard work. my dad is my supreme role model--he is a farmer/mechanic who doesn't owe anyone a dime and who never complains about a thing. i'm the oldest of 2 kids and we have both been "christians" since we were wee ones. i wish i had a cool story about wanting "the power" or something...the only thing that comes to mind when i consider that is this time i was like 3 and we were at west ed mall and i saw this roller coaster, but i mean i was THREE so i had a limited vocabulary, and i was like "i want to go on the train!" so all the adults were like "train? where did she see that??" and toted me off to find this elusive "train" i spoke of... as it turned out, there was actually a train...that took you through a HAUNTED HOUSE! gah! needless to say, awful. oh yeah, so about what i was talking about before i told that story...(this happens a lot with me. only when it's in person, i usually lose myself and it's best if i'm with someone who can hold my initial story for me like i might get them to hold my purse while i do something else for a minute)...

maybe a new paragraph will help? alright so i decided to "give my life to God" at a pretty dang young age, but the thing about that is, i never really got a chance to choose it with an adult mind/heart. until the time i realized i'd never really chosen it at all. when i was about 16, i figured out that what i believed in was just something i had on a shelf. (a helpful visual: did you ever have some kind of trinket or piece of kitsch that your mom put in your room when you were a kid, and it just kind of...remained there? into your adolescent life? one of those weird little things that had always been there and was so familiar and normal to have there that you just didn't bother to get rid of it or ask yourself "what's that doing in here" and maybe your friends would notice because it kind of didn't fit in with the band posters and bottles and books...) it was "part of my life." that sucked. because really, all it was in that respect, was a weak reason to get up on sunday mornings and a set of rules being enforced by a cosmic cop via my parents. so, in response to a numinous nudge that seemed to say, "shaina. i'm for real. but i'm not who they told you i am. and you can't find me where they say i am. come outside...", i decided to just go ahead and let it be my life. i won't say too much about it 'cause it all just sounds like hokey-doodle blessings-on-ya banter if i try to condense it in a logical way. so, reverting to token shaina form, back to the abstract! i think a lot of what the human race considers to be God-related is actually bullshit. no one bothers to plant something these days, they just pick the fruit off someone else's plant. or worse yet, they blindly buy it from a bin. remember the time they banned carrots for a while because they found out the distributers were using human feces for fertilizer?? well. that is what i think about just negligently adopting and incorporating other people's produce (literal, spiritual, intellectual, philosophical, you name it) into your life. it could be total shit! and yeah, i curse sometimes. because until i hermeneutically deduce that curse words and not dirty judgemental and condemning and racist and hateful words were the words the bible was talking about not letting come out of your mouth, i'm not entirely sure they're that bad to use.

but basically, that is me in a nutshell. anything else (ie: what movies i like, what flavor of cola i prefer, my "career plans,") is just filler. i believe in loving God and loving my neighbor. i believe in seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness. i fricken love people and i don't think a-one of 'em is hopeless or meaningless.



if you want an outside opinion on who i am and what my purpose is, here is a review from my best friend (she was just telling me on msn how she was trying to explain me to her cousin who reads my myspace blogs):

"i was trying to describe to her how you think.. like that you don't want to conform to everything.. and you make people think about things and question why they believe something.. if they are just doing it cause everyone else is and whatnot." --kim


and if you want to come up with your own opinion, i feverishly support that.