I don't usually like to post an additional message right on the proverbial heels of another, but it fits better this way. As I said in my last post, I think podcasting is a really neat thing. I also commented that teen podcasts were still quite few and far between. The two or three I've listened to have been either poorly done, or don't really give me any information I care about.

I made up a term to describe what I'm looking for. I want to hear a professional-informal podcast about teens, their opinions, and their interests. Professional in the regard that it meets with most broadcast standards and practices, informal in the regard that it doesn't sound polished. If the telephone rings in the background, it keeps ringing until it stops. Most teens that I know speak in colloquialisms and contractions. They don't use the King's English, but make up words, if it suits them. If the United States English word doesn't fit well enough, they will borrow words from other languages if they need to. In short, it is conversational, not scripted. This isn't a big deal for me, I even write this way sometimes. 'Course my borrowed words are more Posh, they're usually Latin or Greek, but so what?

A fairly good example of what I mean is the "Teen Opinion Podcast." I've come across a few teen podcasts, but never before found one that sounded so honest and straightforward. I find it uniquely refreshing. The host seems to have put together an organized and generally professional show. As I said, I prefer informal to formal, conversational to scripted, and this seems to be just what I find here. It seems as if the host typed an outline and then just talks for the duration of the show. He has different segments that he addresses if he's got something to say, and skips them if he doesn't.

The host seems to be exceptionally intelligent, with an ability to reason beyond his age. One incident specifically struck me speechless when I heard it last week.

The show I was listening to (show 20) was a month or two old, but he read an email message that someone had sent him about the Davinci Code. I hope he'll forgive me if I misquote him, but his response was:

The Davinci Code is a work of fiction ... The Media has been hyping it up to be a work of nonfiction, to be real, but it is fiction. It's brilliantly written, and things that are brilliantly written sound like they could be real. But they're not. They're not, and especially the Davinci Code.

I am stunned by this comment. Stunned. When I have been asked about the book, I most often explain why the actual points in the davinci code aren't true; he just skipped past it all and explained why it didn't matter what the book said. I am so impressed by this, I find myself unable to describe my wonder.

While I may be unable to really describe my awe, however, I can explain why I am so amazed. His comments showed an understanding of the material that even few adults have. I think it is important to know why the Davinci code is false, but he is right when he basically says that it doesn't really matter. It is a work of fiction.

It is for comments like the one I quoted above that I will always believe that teenagers and younger kids are worth listening to. So many adults will brush off a teen or a kid because of their youth, I say let them talk!

If we want to hear these kids talk then, the easiest place for them to talk seems to be the podcast environment. The podcast environment basically gives a person his or her own radio show, and in effect, says, "Have a good time!" Perhaps in some cases this could be dangerous, but I have a hard time imagining such a situation.

I think there is something really special about the uncensored voice of teens and children, and would really encourage any teen who has the time to start a podcast. The format doesn't need to be fixed, the show doesn't even need to be all that organized. The Important thing is to try.

To all my teenage readers, I think Dr. Seuss put it best:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

And this note from me. It doesn't matter what other people think about your opinion, about your beliefs or about your thoughts. You are a new and unique person, There has never been another person quite like you, and none will follow. so no matter what some people say, you'll always discover that people like me find what you have to say fascinating, even if we disagree. To paraphrase Miles Davis,

"A good idea is always good, no matter what it is or who said it.

I just discovered podcasting. Well, that's not strictly speaking true, I've known about it for a while, I just never commented on it.

For any of you still living in a cave somewhere who have no idea what a podcast is, I'll tell you. A podcast is, simply put, like a radio show that is automatically downloaded once a new show is released. It is like an offline radio show. You listen to it whenever you get a chance, transport it however you like, and don't have to do a thing. In the older days of radio, you would have to hook up a recorder to your radio, get ready to record when the show started, turn the recorder off when the show was over, and get another recorder if you wanted to make copies of your show. It was a pain! Until podcasting, the plight wasn't much better. You would go to the radio show's website, download each radio show individually, and check back whenever the show changed. With podcasting, unless you turn the option off, your computer checks periodically to see if any new shows have been posted. It is a beautiful thing for getting radio shows alone.

Arguably the best feature of podcasting, however, is the ability of any person in the world to start his or her own podcast. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

I am a youth ministry major. As such, the interests and concerns, not to mention the opinions of teenagers are very important to me. Before podcasting, you could listen to the radio for hours or days, and never actually hear someone younger than 20 speak. Usually that means younger than 30, but I allow for exceptions. True, once in a while you might stumble upon a teen DJing a music hour, but you'd probably never hear a candid opinion or be able to get a real idea of what the teen cared about if you listened for years. The format just doesn't lend itself to that. Even if you heard a radio show directed at teens, you wouldn't hear the teenage opinion, only the 30-something producer's opinion. Again, the medium simply doesn't lend itself to it. Radio shows need to be paid for, and that usually means the audience only hears what the producers think they want to hear. The medium seems to be almost intrinsically oppressive.

So what of podcasts then? Why are they any better? Easy, because they don't cost thousands of dollars to set up. I don't have all of the details yet, but I'm told they can be set up for basically nothing. The cost of an internet connection. For a teenager wanting to post an opinion podcast, for a fifth-grade class that wants to address the world or for a political dissident in an oppressed nation that wants to speak his or her mind, all that is required is an internet connection. Again, so I hear.

The Teenage podcast scene is still pretty limited though, which is unfortunate. I assume this is mostly because nobody knows how to set up a podcast. If I remember what it was like to be a teenager though, I would assume it is because they think nobody will care. This is simply wrong. Sure, nobody may care at first, but it is equally as likely that a whole boatload of people will care. Depends on how you run your show, the temperament of the audience, and a whole bunch of other things that vary from person to person. I think the important thing is to try. Whether you are a teenager with something to say, or a teacher of a fifth grade class, podcasting might be for you.

I think the important question to ask yourself would be this. If money were no object and program scheduling were not a concern, would you want to start a radio show? Maybe not even "would you want to" but "would anything, no matter how small be served by it?" No matter what your interests are, there'll always be some other wacko with the same interests. Besides, what could it hurt?

Here's a song I've been listening to for years, and just about a month ago, realized what one of the lines meant. TO anyone that knows the song, I expect you know which line I speak of, for those that don't, here's an excerpt:

when you let it shine you will inspire the kind of entire turnaround
That would make a bouncer take ballet
(even bouncers who aren't (awkward pause) happy)

What I find most interesting is that I never got it. The last two lines didn't rhyme, and from the flow of the rest of the song, they should've. The word that fits in that song, that would rhyme with the previous adds a whole extra level of amusement to my listening. It never occured to me that that pause was there to illustrate the singer editing himself. I love it, it is so clever. So clever it took me more than a decade to notice (Granted, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm not an idiot either).

The CD this is from, or at least the earliest I can find, is "Going Public" which Amazon says was released in 1994. I know this was not the first Newsboys CD I ever owned (which was "Take Me To Your Leader"), but I know it had to be the second or third. This back at a time when all CDs were rare. Presuming that I got this CD in '95 (when I was 13 by the way) that means it has taken me almost 11 years to figure out what this line means. So obviously I'm not quite as near to the sharp end of the scale as I would like to be. Though I don't know of many 13 year old boys that grew up in the rural midwestern United States that would be able to make this connection right away anyway (in my defense). Because of the rather nicely hidden implied meaning of this passage of the song, if someone like me didn't get it right away, he or she would probably just have continued to enjoy the music and ignored the fact that it didn't rhyme until much later (well, at least that is what I did). It's not like I tried to figure it out for 11 years, rather, I never paid it much mind until about a month ago when everything clicked for some strange reason.

It isn't like the "hidden meaning" of that line is something terribly obscene or anything, at most it is impollite. It also isn't as though the Newsboys were trying to communicate some type of subliminal message through their music (though I did have a strong urge to dance, such as I can), it is more like a hidden joke than anything else. A very cleverlly hidden joke.

All That to say this: I think the Newsboys have demonstrated very clearly their writing tallent again in the writing of this song. Granted, this would be more of a review you would expect to read a month after the the album has come out, rather than 12 years after, but given the cleverness of the lyrics, it has taken longer in this case.

Not being well-versed in most history other than United States history and vague snippets of European history or early Christian Church history, I don't get the "strict dictator to retire, fire the army, teach the poor origami" line, but I'm comfortable believing it is a hypothetical rather than an historical story, so I won't worry about it until I find otherwise. Then perhaps I'll have a new blog entry... :-)

S. D. G.

I just finished writing an essay on depression, and I have to say what a revealing and rather personal task that was. We were given a choice to write about any abstract concept we wanted to define in a short 3 page paper. I picked depression because, of course, it was easiest. The shortest distance between two proverbial points, if you like. For a college student, this is important, nigh essential.

Until about spring this year, 2006, I had been taking anti-depressant medicine since I was in high school or early college (yes, I don't remember exactly when). That would have meant that I started taking the medicine somewhere between 2000 and 2002. A car accident in November 2003 temporarially interrupted this otherwise continual medication, but aside from that few month interruption, I took anti-depressant medicine for 4 to 6 years.

The medicine was, after some initial adjustments to determine which would be the best, largely effective. I didn't, for the most part, feel depressed during the time medicated. I did, however, and still do remember what it felt like to be depressed for the countless years of my life prior to the end of high school. It was memory of this time that I used in writing my paper.

I touched on some medical and psychological points, which consisted mostly of information I had learned from my doctors over the years. The part of the paper I found personal, however, was in fulfilling the instruction to tell a story. The story didn't need to be personal, of course, and in any case, had to be written in third person, but as all I knew of depression aside from facts and figures was what I had experienced, I chose to make it personal.

I told about my years of being depressed. I talked about what it felt like, what it looked like, and what the future seemed to hold. I told about how depression seemed to me as though it would never end, as though I would be condemned to feeling so badly forever, even well after death.

All of this had to be written in third person, of course, which I found rather awkward, but that was the basic outline of the story nonetheless.

Though I don't often divulge such personal information unless directly asked, I found writing this essay strangely rewarding. It was the same kind of feeling I have experienced before, when describing a fear or relating a deeply personal story in a letter to a close friend. The feeling seems to be related to a feeling of relief, but much more mild. A feeling of closure, but again, not quite the same. A feeling of satisfaction, yes, but much more directed. I found the whole experience rather intriguing as well as being resonably enjoyable.

It's been five or six months, so now I'll update you all on my life, shall I? :-)

1. I went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
2. I worked at Spring Hill Camps in Evart, Michigan
3. I started a new semester at Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan

Mayo Clinic.
Interesting experience. It's hard to say whether it was fun or not. Too many conflicting thoughts. On one hand, I had to ride 12 hours from my parents' house in Northern Michigan across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, and a good bit of Minnesota before we arrived. The ride itself wouldn't have bothered me, were it not for the fact that I had to ride in a Dodge Durango, commonly referred to as one of the world's worst and most uncomfortable vehicles for long distance travelling. At least I didn't have to ride in the back seat. We arrived planning to stay for the next week, only to be sent home after meeting with the doctor once. I then got to ride home in the immense comfort of my father's Durango for another 12 hours.

Quite apart from the ride, the visit to Mayo itself was quite enjoyable. The Clinic in Rochester was built in the Art Deco style. Big, gaudy, and beautiful. I quite enjoyed the place only for the architecture and decorating. Marble floors, wood panelled walls, high ceilings, and fancy fixtures. It was quite a place.

I met with the doctor, who, totally unlike the other neuro-opthamologist I've seen, actually was in possession of a bedside manner. He didn't treat me like I was inferior, he treated me like a respected customer. He was, in short, much more pleasant than the University of Michigan Hospital doctors with whom I had experience. Those doctors, were, save one, all insufferable know-it-alls who acted like it was a burden for them to even deal with patients. When you met with one of the doctors, you got the distinct impression that it was a terrible inconvenience for them to see you at all, as if they had something better to be doing.

The doctor's report, however, was not so positive. While his personality and manner were quite pleasant and amiable, his news was not. "The optic nerve is like the spinal cord, once it has been damaged, it will not heal". He then went on to explain how and why he came to the conclusion that I did indeed have optic nerve damage, and was happy to answer any questions I might have. He then asked if he could ask my dad in, and explain the situation to him. I agreed, the doctor explained, and my dad and I went home.

Were it not for my dislike of motel rooms, I would have been quite content to stay in Minnesota for a rather longer time. Maybe I could've been given a tour of Mayo Clinic, and so on. In the interest of spending fewer insurance dollars, however, we departed and returned to Michigan, as I recall, the following day.

From my account, therefore, it should be evident that it is difficult to determine whether I had a good time or not. The ride was miserable, the news was worse, but the place itself was quite neat, and I did get out of my parents' basement for a few days.

Spring Hill
\ Spring Hill during the summer of 2006 was quite one of the more positive experiences of my life. From about the middle of June to the middle of August I was privileged to work as a camp counsellor of fourth through sixth grade boys at Spring Hill Camps, a Christian camp in Evart, Michigan.

This specific age group is a lot of fun, but is, simultaneously, very tiring. It is as if each of those boys had an in-depth knowledge of how to tire out his counsellor. One of the neatest experiences happened only a week or two before I was done working there for the year. I was tired, and feeling rather worn from the previous weeks, and the alteration of my routine of doing nothing for weeks at a time.

Each night we would end the day with a campfire. WE would lead the kids in some silly camp songs, and gradually lead them to a few praise songs. Then, the kids were guided to summarize the day, after which a lesson of sorts would be given by the Area Director, who was basically the leader of counsellors. This day of the week was Wednesday, when the salvation message was presented. The Area Director talked about how Christ died to save us from sin, and how we could receive that gift for free, by simply asking for it. The kids were invited to stay after campfire and ask any questions they had of any of the counsellors. The counsellors, on the other hand, would just kinda pace around looking for someone that wanted to talk. I was passing another counsellor friend of mine, and he said, "Hey Brett, lets hear what you think about this." A little boy whom I didn't know from another cabin repeated his question. "What about cavemen?" and we were off. I addressed the question, and he asked another. Before we quite knew it, most everyone else had left the campfire and gone to bed, but that boy and I were still talking. A while later, after it was much too late, I broke off our conversation and sent him to bed. It was at that point that I realized that that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. TO teach kids about how Christianity fits into the world around them.

Spring Arbor
I am either a first or second semester Junior at Spring Arbor University. I had never been to this campus prior to this calendar year, and never taken classes here prior to this academic year (2006-2007). I am studying youth ministry, and I, more or less, enjoy it. Rather, I enjoy the prospect of a future job, rather than the actual studying itself. The school work isn't bad, per se, but it is work. I'm sure that this is somehow good for me, character building and all that rot, or something, but it's really rather dull as yet.

Having gone to mainly liberal schools, previously, I was more than a little surprised by Spring Arbor's conservatism. I don't know that I'm quite adjusted to it yet, but that's coming soon enough I expect. I've never been to any school before where Christian ideology is at the foundation of things covered in classes. I'm used to having to adapt what I'm being taught to my worldview. I was completely unprepared to not have to do that this year, or at least not to the extent. I still try to be careful about what I learn, as the things I know to be true are in contradiction to what some Christians practice and believe, but it is rather refreshing to not have to wade through a quagmire of liberal ideology to get to the facts.

Thus summarizes my summer. Hope it wasn't too boring for you all. And to think, this initially was supposed to be a short post... :-)