Forever and Ever and Everandeverandever

I just posted this video on Facebook, so posting it here might be a little redundant, but my heart is so rooted in this song that I don't care. If you've never heard this song (or even if you have a million times), you should listen to it right now. Stop what you are doing, and give eight minutes of your life to just listen.
Holy, by Matt Gilman (live, just how I like it):

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!"

Revelation 4:8

I first heard this song when I went to Onething, a conference in Kansas City with the International House of Prayer, during the winter of 2008. Actually, we spent the tail-end of 2008 there, and along with thousands of people, we rang in the new year worshiping and celebrating. It was such an amazing experience, and I would love to go again. 

It was during this particular song that God laid it on my heart that He wanted me to sing for Him. Not the biggest revelation in the world, but He really showed me that I can connect to Him through singing and that it gives Him joy.

I grew to love the kind of prophetic music that we sang at Onething. The lyrics are so simple and extremely repetitive, but they are rooted in scripture and carry such power. And because the songs were so repetitive, you usually never wanted them to end. That's exactly how I feel about this song. I have listened to this song on a loop so many times, it's almost embarrassing. Once, I listened to it over and over again during an entire bus ride back from Chicago. That's two and a half hours.

In this busy day and age, it's overwhelming to think of doing something forever. When I used to read that verse in Revelation about the four creatures saying the same thing over and over again, I thought that sounded like the most boring job ever.

Now I beg to differ. I often find myself longing for more worship, more music, by the end of a song at church or Large Group. When it's time to sit or leave, I feel like I could have kept singing for another hour. The thought of singing "holy, holy, holy" day and night, night and day, is the most comforting thing I can think of right now.

God has placed this desire in our hearts, to seek Him always and to worship Him for all time. I have just one other video, and this one is ten minutes, but it is just so beautiful and powerful that I can't not post it. It's Matt Gilman again, and this time, this song is from the conference I attended. I remember exactly where I was standing during this time. It was right after "Holy," when God had told me how He loved to hear me sing. So I sang my heart out with everyone else. I almost cried with every word. God is that amazing.

Tonight is All-Campus Worship at the University of Illinois. It's like a mini-Onething with all the campus ministries coming together just to worship for one night a semester. Unfortunately, it won't last forever. But Heaven will, and I will get to sing forever and ever and never stop. Because that's exactly what my soul is made for.

Can I Be In A Musical?

Please? Right now?
I miss musicals. I got to participate in three of them during high school, and musical season was always the best part of the year. I played violin in the pit orchestra for our production of Aida, and I fell in love with it. Also became uncontrollably obsessed with it. It's an amazing Romeo & Juliet type story set in ancient Egypt. With breathtaking music by Tim Rice and Elton John (same people who did The Lion King).
The next year, I wanted to be part of the cast, and we were performing Seussical.
I was a Butter Battle Cadet:

Ohh, yeah. Then, we did Cinderella the following year (our choir directors went through a kiddie musical phase in which they wanted to cater to everyone's little siblings for some reason). I was a "maiden," so nothing special, but still musicals were some of the best times of my life in high school.
I'm the girl in the green skirt with only one shoe who looks like I'm about to bring the terror:

Point being, I love musicals. And, I spent a good amount of my weekend watching and becoming obsessed with A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel on youtube. And wishing I could be a part of the cast and relive my glory days.

First, I will say that if you are a Harry Potter fan and are not afraid of a little parody, A Very Potter Musical and its Sequel are for you. I highly recommend both because they are incredibly hilarious.
Draco is my favorite character, followed by Voldemort. They're all really awesome though.
Darren Criss, who now plays a strong supporting character (Blaine!) on Glee, plays Harry and also wrote all of the music and lyrics for both musicals (along with A.J. Holmes on the first one).
Seriously, guys. These musicals made my weekend.

But my point for this post is just to reiterate how much I want to be in a musical right now. We have productions here in college, but I don't have time nor do I have the talent to compete with theatre and music majors in auditions.
So I don't know how to remedy this dilemma. That's why I'm complaining I guess.
Honestly, I can't come up with a single solution other than to just get over it.
I can't get over it! I want to sing! Ahh. Nostalgia attack.

This post is getting embarrassing now. I feel like more and more of my posts are ending up like this. I promise I'll have some better ones soon. This is just the result of poorly planned procrastination. Ahaha, is there such a thing? Yes, in my opinion. And that's what I'm blaming for this sub-par post.
Now I'm going to watch Criminal Minds.

The Reason for the Name

Most of you know why my blog is named what it is: "Like sinking ships," but I thought I would give a brief overview of exactly what that came from and why I love it so much.

The exact quote comes from my very favorite song by The Killers, called A Dustland Fairytale. And if you know anything about me, you know that The Killers is my all-time favorite band.  The lyrics for A Dustland Fairytale are as follows:

A dustland fairytale beginning,
Just another white trash county kiss
In sixty-one, long brown hair, and foolish eyes.
He looked just like you'd want him to,
Some kind of slick, chrome, American prince.
Blue jean serenade, and moon river, what'd you do to me?
I don't believe you.


Saw Cinderella in a party dress,
But she was lookin' for a nightgown.
I saw the devil wrappin' up his hands.
He's gettin' ready for the showdown.
I saw the minute that I turned away,
I got my money on a palm tonight.

Change came in disguise of revelation,
Set his soul on fire.
She said she always knew
He'd come around.
And the decades disappear like sinking ships,
But we persevere.
God gives us hope, but we still fear
What we don't know.
The mind is poison.
Castles in the sky sit stranded, vandalized.
The drawbridge is closin'.


Saw Cinderella in a party dress,
But she was lookin' for a nightgown.
I saw the devil wrappin' up his hands.
He's gettin' ready for the showdown.
I saw the ending when they turned the page.
I took my money and I ran away
Straight to the valley of the great divine.


Out where the dreams are high,
Out where the wind don't blow,
Out here the good girls die,
And the sky won't snow.
Out here the bird don't sing,
Out here the field don't grow,
Out here the bell don't ring.
Out here the bell don't ring.
Out here the good girls die.


Now, Cinderella, don't you go to sleep.
It's such a bitter form of refuge.
Why don't you know the kingdom's under siege,
And everybody needs you?
Is there still magic in the midnight sun?
Or did you leave it back in sixty-one
In the cadence of a young man's eyes?
Out where the dreams are high.


I don't expect you to read all of that. But at least listen to the song, if you are interested. It's a live version, so it's flawed, but there's more reality to it that way.

The Killers - A Dustland Fairytale on David Letterman

Album Covers!

So a few weeks ago, my procrastination of choice was to make pretend album covers on picnik.com following these instructions I found on Facebook:

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days." Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use picnik.com to put it all together.

 So this is what resulted:

Hello, February...

I didn't write a post about January because I was blissfully at home and was otherwise entertained by Harry Potter. The only reason I am writing a February post right now is because I am, of course, procrastinating. But, I figure I should continue my monthly preview things for the sake of routine, so here we are.

January was fine, and so was December. Both were half spent at home and half at school. The home parts were so comfortably lazy that I have no words. I love being lazy. I love doing nothing. If I had to choose between being bored or being stressed for the rest of my life, I would choose bored. Is that even really a choice? I bet some people would choose stressed. Anyway, that has nothing to do with February. I'm getting off track.
February promises to be a bleak month. Once all the early excitement is over, there is nothing to look forward to. Just school and class and homework and tests and cold, cold, cold.
Yesterday was Groundhog Day. Apparently, he predicted an early spring, but that doesn't mean anything.

Wow, I'm sorry. This post is super depressing. I have a talent at being able to take happy things and see the down side in all of them. Want to see my talent in action? Sure you do.

Happy thing #1: We had a snow day yesterday! That meant my quiz in my Abnormal Psych class got postponed and I didn't have to go to my two scheduled classes!
But: I didn't do anything yesterday. I watched movies. You know what that means? I have to do all of that crap today. And, now I have my Psych quiz tomorrow. So I have to study tonight along with do all my other homework I did not do yesterday during all my free time. Blehh.

Happy thing #2: Winter Retreat is this weekend! I've been looking forward to this for months, and it's finally here! I just have to get through the rest of today and classes tomorrow, and then it's off to a great weekend!
But: I have a quiz on Monday morning. I'm not going to get anything done over this weekend at all. And, I'll probably spend the weekend complaining about the cold, and potentially not feeling good.

Happy thing #3: The Super Bowl is on Sunday!! And the Green Bay Packers are in it!!! And, I get to celebrate it with my family at a real Super Bowl party at my house! Ahh, I am almost more excited about this than about Winter Retreat!!
But: I'm afraid we're going to lose. And I will be at my house for the majority of the evening, which means I won't get any work done and I'll get back to campus fairly late at night, and you know I won't do any studying for my quiz on Monday then. But mostly I'm afraid we're going to lose.

And all of these happy things only pertain to this week. The weeks to come have nothing for me.
I'm too schizophrenic right now to focus on a February post. I have a recommendation for you folks. (Who am I kidding, I don't have folks! Whatever.) This blog I found is the reason I was up so late last night and now I feel like crap and don't want to do any work. You should check it out. It's just this girl who posts things that make her happy, like pictures, songs, and quotes: http://jussulentnatalie.tumblr.com/

I kind of want to steal her idea. The end.