Diane’s World

OK! I admit it! The sole reason for this post is to get Rachel’s happy-birthday country song off the main page of my blog. It’s no longer you birthday Rachel, and country music makes me… ahhh! Ich ärgere mich über Country Musik!
New song is one given to me by a friend about a year ago. I may have posted it already, but I am going to do something I never do: ACTUALLY PUT the lyrics on my blog. *GASP*! Yes, I am serious, but they are THAT good. And if you don’t want to read the whole thing, I bolded the best parts. Matthias Replaces Judas - by Showbread

It is so that my transgressions have born a withered fruit,

 

The sun has scorched the rising plants; alas they have no root.

 

The bleached bones of animals bound by leather strips,

 

Dance through the air with laughter as I wield this wicked whip.

 

As you did warn me, Carpenter, this world has weakened my heart,

 

So easily I disparage, self-seeking the work of my art.

 

And there you have come to me at the moment I bathe in my sorrow,

 

So in love with myself, sought after avoiding tomorrow,

 

Where do you find the love to offer he who betrays you?

 

And offer to wash my feet as I offer to disobey you?

Your beauty does bereave me, and how my words do fail,

So faithfully and dutifully I award you with betrayal.

The and the down trodden fall on broken legs,

As I walk pas a smile I cast, fervor in my stead,

But my bones like plastic do buckle backward now,

I lay in this field by Judas’ bowels and anticipate the plow.

 

I can not be forgiven; my wages will be paid,

 

For those more lovely and admirable is least among the saved.

 

And where would I fit, Jesus?

 

What place is left for me?

 

The price of atonement is more than I’ve found to offer up as my plea,

 

Jesus my heart is all I have to give to you;

 

So weak and so unworthy, it simply will not do.

 

No alabaster jar, no diamond in the rough,

 

For your body that was broken

 

How can this be ENOUGH?

 

By me you were abandoned

 

By me you were betrayed

 

Yet in your arms and in your heart forever I have stayed.

 

Your glory illuminates my life, and no darkness will descend

 

for you have loved me forever, and your love will never end.

 

I would write a long explanation about why I posted this, but I think the song basically sums up my feelings about now:

I’m sick of sinning. I’m sick of messing up. I’m sick of having a heart that wants to beat for the wrong reasons. I’m sick of not loving others like I am supposed to.

I have no idea how God manages to put up with me. I have no idea why he continues to bless my life even though I continue to actively seek other things besides him.

 

There is one more song I put on after the Showbread song - “Grace like Rain” by Todd Agnew (haha! That country song will NEVER resurface!).

 

“Hallelujah! Grace like rain falls down on me!

Hallelujah! All my stains are washed away!”

 

(Sorry about the Christmas colored text. I just found out today how to color text and I got a little too excited )

 

And that’s all the entertainment I have for you today. Have a wonderful weekend, ya’lls.

Deedles Marie

AHHH I almost forgot a few things:

1) Somethings are happening at Dordt that I am very upset about.

First of all, Pam and Charles Adams (professors at Dordt) got into a serious car accident. They are still alive… but their situation is very serious!

Second, my ex-boss, Sandi Altena was unfairly, suddenly and unreasonably fired from her job. If you attend Dordt College and you know her, and haven’t written a letter to President Zylstra yet, please do so! Let me know if you need more information.

And please keep both of these situations in your prayers!

2) MY ART SHOW IS GOING UP IN 1.5 WEEKS! AHHH! IF YOU ARE IN IOWA, MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

Ok that’s all.

Bye for reals now.

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To my dearest, loveliest, funniest sister (well, one of them. I love you too, Sarah),

Well, at least the sister people confuse with me occasionally:

I love you very much… ever since the very first moment we met. And I’m sure you loved me too, despite the fact that I had more hair than you:

You have watched over me… both when I was little and now as an adult. You are a very good older sister:

Soo many songs remind me of you. Here is one of them… (only for you would I even think about putting a country song on my blog ): (enter “Barbeque Stain” song here!)

I miss being goofy with you and growing up with you:And Germany isn’t quite the same without you:

But basically, I LOVE BEING YOUR SISTER!!! AND I MISS YOU!

PLEASE COME TO GERMANY!

AND HAVE A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY! I am sooo sad I’m not in Iowa to cook you an amazing meal… and I could really go for pot roast about now. Boo!

Love, your little sister

the Deeds

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I am a huge “death cab for cutie” fan.”What Sarah Said” is a very good song. The lyrics prove me right.

This weekend, as I already mention, I went to Berlin with my classmates. A little forewarning: I have over 300 pictures of this trip… so there will probably be a lot on this blog. Sorry about that.

To answer my uncle’s question, we take trains and buses when our school travels to different cities, and we stay in hostels.

Here is the Goethe group on the first part of the trip. Please ignore what my college Hamid is doing. Yes, I am the only blond female in this picture on the far left.:

We stayed in a youth hostel. Here is one of the boys rooms because I was too lazy to take a picture of my own room myself.

Of course, we saw a lot of nice buildings. Berlin is very rich in nice architecture and just reeks with Culture.

Here is our group at the Brandenburg Tor… it was way tooooo cold for me in Berlin… like, 38 degrees Farenheit. Oh wait, it’s 0º in Sioux Center, Iowa. Never mind, I am not gonna complain.

Parliment’s library. The person who took this picture was standing on the location of the Berlin wall.

The Reichstag… and Andréa! She moved to Berlin recently, so I already have a friend in Berlin for when I change schools! It definitely makes moving slightly easier for me.

On the top of the Reichstag — Oh soooo cold!

Yes, we love each other! The next four photos were taken on the dome on top of the reichstag…

The best way to keep warm

Me with two of my favorite men in Germany - Nikos and Fred:

Ok one more… this photo makes me laugh inside:

We also did a lot of real German culture… aka bar-hopping.:

Here is Hamid showing off his skills (He’s blowing smoke rings) in the Hookah Bar:

Yes it was a good trip…

I will end with a wonderful picture that I will leave open to interpretation:

Yes, they make a lovely couple

Bis später, Alligator!

Diane

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This song (”oh my God” by Jars of Clay) is one that I first heard while at chapel in Dordt College. The lyrics are powerful, and they kind of hit me this week. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!Since the last time I have written a few things have happened, but this will probably be a brief post. Sorry it took me so long to write this… it seemed like every time I needed to post, the internet in my room gave out.

The main thing is that I spent last weekend in Brussels.

Brussels is an absolutely lovely place. Instead of trying to describe it, here are some pictures:

St. Michaels (i think) church

There was some very beautiful singing going on inside the church. They were only practicing, so it was nice to roam the church with music going on.

Very nice shopping alleys like this were everywhere. It seemed like everything in Brussels was thought out aesthetically… which I really enjoyed.

A view from the city from a hill.

In the main square:

This is also from on top of the hill:

Classes are going well. I get frustrated quite often, but the learning is happening. Today I actually taught someone how to do something (in GERMAN!) so I’m feeling rather proud of myself.

I bought myself a Handy (Handy is what they call a cell phone in Germany. Yes, weird)

Amazingly, it only makes calls and does texting… and has the ability to tell me where I am. No email, no camera… just a phone. A pay-as you go phone. It’s so small and perty:

I got it mainly because I feel safer with it - it has the Taxi number in it should I ever get in a rough spot, and if I’m ever in a group and lose the group, I will be able to find them again. I think the thought of moving to Berlin kind of made me a little nervous to be alone without any form of emergency communication. I don’t plan to use it much, more as a safety net than anything else.

Ok enough of that. I think only my parents would find that part interesting.

I hope everybody is having a wonderful Valentines Day! I’m lucky that it isn’t nearly as big of a holiday in Germany as it is in the USA. However, my Korean friend surprised me with a little gift.

Here is my friend (her name is Hy0-Kyung… the one I have a painting named after)

and she gave me this:

and inside were these two little guys (they are paper clips):

So that made me smile pretty much the entire day.

Also, I got this book to entertain myself with:

Every page has a different way to destroy the journal - whether it be ripping out pages, licking a page after eating colorful candy, taking a shower with the journal, sleeping with the journal, scribbling in the journal, documenting a boring event in detail, and making paper airplanes/paper chains with pages of the journal. Heck, one of my friends even got to spit in the journal. Me and my classmates have found a lot of joy in destroying it so far, but I have a lot more pages yet to destruct.

Here is the first page of the journal to give you an idea :

yes yes… it is a very Diane-like thing.

Ok, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been struggling to come up with interesting information for this blog… and it’s very quickly dying

I am going to Berlin this weekend with my classmates… hopefully I will have a lot more interesting things to say after that!!!

Much affection!

Diane

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you the most bizarre things I have ever seen.Germans, who are usually over-serious… and basically the opposite of “jolly”… get together for a whole week to as one nation, to drink beer and eat candy.No I’m not kidding.Here is day 1 of the Karneval for you:

what a crazy town… almost everybody is drinking beer - quite a few people are singing German songs, and music is being blasted from multiple directions. Everybody is dressed up to some extent:

IN the goethe-institut, we had our own little party before heading on to the streets. We were taught how to dance the “the Karneval song” - which was rather entertaining.

And most of my friends and I were in costume.

Here is Nikos and Sam:

Bayo Olupohunda and I:

Hamid and Andréa

(She is pretending to cut his tie… the reason for this, is the first day of Karneval is women’s day… and if any men wear a tie, the women are allowed to chop it in half. So they sell cheap ties as souvenirs… )

I got to cut a few myself!

Two devils and a Minney Mouse!

There was a lot of dancing, singing and drinking that day - it was absolutely crazy!

The following saturday, we headed to Köln. Unfortunately, both the Ludwig museum and the dom were closed because of Karneval,but we plan to go again next Thursday. So we walked around, exploring the city instead.

(Next picture is Hamid, Nikos, Phillip (from the USA) and Hamid’s cousin)

It was a very nice day… kind of cold and windy though!

The next Monday was RosenMontag -the biggest day of Karneval. WE didn’t have any school -and there was a HUGE mardis-gras like parade in the Altstadt.

However, my camera batteries died very early in the day (lesson is learned - charge the dang thing before important events!) and I have yet to steal pictures from my friend Beyo. So you don’t get to see RosenMontag.

However, it was cold, rainy, and I spent most of the day with my Indian friend, Bahwna. (I spelled that wrong probably.)

Here is Bahwna and a Döner

The parade was fun - whenever a float came by, you would yell “HELAU!” and they will throw candy, flowers, and balls at you. It was absolutely hilarious! Somewhat dangerous with all the candy flying everywhere!

On Wednesday, we went to an art museum called K20/K21. I was expecting for it to be artist I never knew of… but it ended up being soo soo much more!

I saw works by: Picasso, Dubuffet, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Stella, Dichiciro, Margritte, Matisse, Klee, Miró, Pollock, Lewitt, Beuys, Schwitters, Kandinsky, Albers, Lichenstein, Yves Klein, Dalí, Ernst (and believe me, I could continue for a very long time)

I knew almost every single artist in this exhibit - it was absolutely amazing!

Anyways, that is all I have for this week. My anemia is back and kicking I think (I have no idea when the last time I ate beef was!) - naps have become an extremely imporant ritual for me in the past few days. I am on a search to find steak tomorrow I think. And maybe some iron pills. I don’t know.

I’ve been painting as well. Here are the ones I don’t think i’ve shown yet:

Hyo-Kyung: (named after the sweetest Korean girl in my class. I absolutely enjoy working with her)

And Aqua zoo:

Today I made my first full-size painting (11″x8.5)

It’s called “Fun-sucking Anemia”. I made it for therapeutic reasons. And it worked quite nicely. I used a whole tube of white paint on it.

Anyways, my happy wall is getting huge. I bought a really cheap poster (1 euro 25 cents!!! ) from the art museum yesterday - a print by Rauschenberg that I found especially impressive

Ok well I think that is all I have for now.

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