New Life, New Blogs

There have been many changes in my life throughout the life of this blog. A lot can happen in 5 years.

But, I figure, with these changes, something's gotta give.....and really, I just need to start writing again. So I have two new blog efforts. Another personal blog by the same name on another domain (though, I haven't regularly started posting yet): http://carotorres.wordpress.com/

I've put all of my blogging energy on getting my other blog off the ground, and it will take a lot to do so: http://nobeautycompares.wordpress.com/

It's a Marian blog focused on glorifying God through images, testimonies, ideas, prayers, poems, (anything in praise that has touched someone) with a special emphasis on devotion to Mary and the the grace bestowed upon her as the Mother of God.

It's a bit a of hefty project, as it is not my own. I will, of course, be weighing in with my devotion and love for Mary and things that I do, read, pray, and see. But, most of all, I want it to serve as an outlet for people's further reflection, education, devotion, and love of Mary and glorifying God. I want people to submit their own images, prayer, testimonies, thoughts, essays, anything the see or encounter that moves them. The email to submit is: nobeautycompares@gmail.com

I'm hoping (and praying) to be able to get the word out and really get participation from online community one day. Any help you can provide whether it be by submissions or getting the word out and encouraging others will be deeply appreciated.

It should also be pointed out, that I'm not limiting it to Marian posts, as anything in praise and aimed to bringing glory to God is absolutely welcome, but due to my particularly love and devotion, Mary is our emphasis and guide to the heart of Jesus. =)

So get to it! http://nobeautycompares.wordpress.com/

God bless!

Love is within the Lord's eternal past

outlet for your further reflection, education, devotion, and love of Mary and glorifying our Lord.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

["How He Loves Us"/ Kim Walker]

"Live Within Love"

I am not the victim the Enemy made me believe that I was. I am not reduced. I am not ugly. I do not contribute to my own sorrow.

The Enemy made me believe that I amounted to the worth of the trials and negativity that I encountered.

You gave me the gift of presence. I can effect the positivity that You created me to effect.

Unfortunately, I hid it. I polluted it. In which the Enemy and his forces that work in others delighted. This led me to ignore You. This led me to believe the pollution, even several times in the face of You, Lord.

But God, you work. You are the most persistent. Your love is the everlasting. Yours is the love that is meant to reign in our hearts.

God, You sent and maintained a select few. A few that refused to acknowledge the Enemy's pollution. A few that did not delight in the self-reinforced contamination that I tried to put forth.

And when You knew it was right, when You knew I had no recourse but to listen with an open heart; You showed me the pollution I allowed to be placed upon and mask my heart. Mask my good.

I knew that was not of me. I am of You. I am of love. I took that contamination and decided to let it go in favor of Your love.

I have invited You in. I have welcomed You into my heart. You have risen to my request to heal the damaged corners and weakened columns that you worked to uphold all along.

There You have made a home. In that home You grow Your love. You, strengthened by myself. You, strengthened by my faith. You, unscathed and pure, Lord.

And I realize, now, that if those few, Your few, could see You within me, when I chose to ignore, what is possible now that I believe? What is possible now that I live, grow, nurture, and cherish You, as You always did me?

You are possible.

I worship You. I live You. I love You, Lord.

Thank You.

Love, Your daughter,

Carolina


Post Scriptum:
Be mindful, my friends, that you are only as unhappy as you believe yourself to be. But your good is limitless, because your good is of God.

Go to the Ends of the Earth for You, to Make You Feel My Love

["Make you Feel My Love"/ Bob Dylan]

I left my apartment, struggling to get my umbrella open. There was no use in doing my hair this morning, given the ridiculous weather, so I walked-on with my curly hair slicked back in a high bun. Finally getting my umbrella open, I pressed play on my iPod in my pocket; Adele told me she was about to begin singing a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”, while introducing her “keys player”. “When the rain is blowing in your face….I could offer you a warm embrace/ To make you feel my love….” tears began to well up in my eyes as she softly sang to me about affirming her love to someone and I thought of doing the same, and of my feelings the night before.

That was it. My life had become some soul-searching 20-something-girl-in-the-big-city movie. As I walked in the rain, holding a black umbrella, dressed in a trench coat, hopping over puddles in my heeled booties, listening to a sad love song as I fought tears welling up in my eyes. Great.

I walked down into the train, which, thankfully came quickly and sat down in the first seat I saw, not a difficult task, since it was an empty train…few people take the train from this deep in Brooklyn; we’re not cool enough yet, despite what my rent suggests.

I closed my eyes and put Adele on repeat. Every time she began again, I heard another line a little louder and a little clearer. Though every single time I mouthed “But I would never do you wrong”, and every single time I did that, my closed eyelids fluttered, and my lip and eyebrow momentarily tensed as a felt a flush of heat rush over my face and moisture fill my eyes. I felt heavy and sad. I imagined myself small, and then large, my fingers felt heavy and swollen around my iPod, my head sagged lower under its own weight.

I opened my eyes, a few more tears fell; I trained them downward along with my head, hiding within the crowded L train. If I don’t see them, they can’t see me, right? I saw shoes, legs, coats, and a purple woven bag in front of me. The bag reminded of something one would find on Olvera street. I closed my eyes again and thought of last night.

I hung up the phone and was upset. I didn’t know what to do and I was confused and sad that what I was doing, all my own truth and self, wasn’t enough to help me and help this situation. I began to cry. I decided that sleep was the only thing I could do with myself, even if it was 10pm. But first, I wanted to pray a rosary. I needed to pray a rosary.

I looked up the Joyful Mysteries, as despite growing up praying the rosary with my grandparents and family, I still don’t know mysteries by heart, but I will. I lifted my grandmother’s rosary off the wall, asking for her help as well; I sat down on my bed and began amongst tears. As I continued, I soon stopped my sobs, breathed, and felt each word come out of my mouth, contemplating Mary, imagining Mary, giving my mind and heart to Mary for that moment.

I ended with my own prayer asking for the Virgin and God’s help and guidance. I needed their help in my confusion, I knew that I was enough and I was trying in every way to show that, but I needed their help to have that be seen, I asked for their help. I needed to know what to do. I lay back, under my covers, praying and thinking. I fell asleep holding my rosary.

I held Her image in my head as I opened my eyes on the train. I felt less heavy than before, but couldn’t shake my sadness, or my tears. I noticed a gesture in front of me; it was actually shaking toward me. I looked up and saw a short tan-skinned woman, one arm around her purple woven bag, the other, holding out a small pack of tissues toward me. I felt both embarrassed and comforted as I grabbed the packet, unfolded a tissue and handed it back to the woman, mouthing “Thank You” to her.

The tissue barely made it to cover my face before I began to cry harder. I relaxed my face, removed the tissue and dried my eyes and sniffled nose. I looked up at the woman; her eyes were closed, as if in mediation or prayer. She was middle-aged with her hair pulled back, and she wore purple blown-glass earrings that almost matched the bag she had one arm folded around. I, too, closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, she leaned into me and began speaking to me, I quickly removed Adele from my ear as she said, “Whatever it is, it will be okay.”

I looked at her, and thanked her, again, while replacing my headphone. I closed my eyes to my tears and began to think and pray. I told myself it would be okay; there was no reason why it wouldn’t be, right? Though, even while I tried to convince myself of this, those thoughts that it wouldn’t be crept in along the sides of my own resolve.

I opened my eyes again, glanced up to see where we were, three more stops until I was supposed to get off.

The woman looked at me and leaned in, again. I removed my headphone, again. She whispered in my ear while lightly squeezing my shoulder, “I wanted to tell you this before, but hand your burden over to God, he will take care of you.”

I gasped, nodded, and thanked her. She gave me an airy smile as she disappeared within the crowd and got off the train.

By the time I caught my breath, cleared my tears, and remembered where I was, it was time for me to get off the train.

I walked up the staircase in the train station and all I could think was that “God will take care of me” and that “I am okay.”

God is with me, as He is with you. We will be okay. Everyone should know this. Everyone should feel His love.

I'm going to try and continue doing this more often, but I absolutely needed to share this story.

Love is all that exists when you decide to listen

And everywhere I go, There's always something to remind me, Of another place and time Where love that travelled far had found me.

( "Remind Me"/ Royksopp)

So I'm sitting here in what is supposed to be my last Monday of class as an undergrad at the University of Southern California, and I can't handle it. I sat in Starbucks this morning, drinking coffee, reading, and bbming, and it hadn't hit me. I waited on the corner of Jefferson and Hoover to cross the street and just began to think about how I wanted to be on a subway. I suddenly wanted a commute. I missed it. I love sitting on the bus and train in the morning and in the evening. It's the perfect time to myself and perfect points of the day. I love it because once you're on the train or the bus, there's nothing else you can do, the commute is now out of your power and all you can do is sit and think and listen to music I'm usually a little late for everything, but once I sit down on the bus I'm relieved, because that's the best I can do in that moment and I almost never get the feeling.

If not Today, Easter will come

(Father Fred, Easter homily)

SO, i realize in my previous post I forgot to mention my new and recent obsession with the West Wing. This a very impotent detail in life right now, as this show is effin amazing. I had honestly never even seen an episode in my life until about two weeks ago, and i'm not sure how this happened. If you have not seen West Wing, and you enjoy quick-paced, intelligent, politically relevant discussion & exchanges, I highly recommend you watch this show.

I don't have anything to say other than to declare my love for West Wing in a public setting outside of twitter, so I'm going to default to talking about POTATOES. Now, yes, lent is over but only by two weeks, and I'm still in my potato-rediscovery phase, as i don't very often cook potatoes for myself at my apartment, i pretty much go for the simplest items possible: sandwiches, pasta, platanos, and sometimes rice, as far as starches go.I don't eat enough myself in order to justify the effort it takes to make a lot of things, including potatoes. There certainly are days when I nuts and make rice, beans, meat, and salad, but i honestly don't foresee myself doing this in the coming weeks until i move out, so whatever. anyway, potatoes. Today, after class, which I'm in right now, I will be going to the 2-9 with my bff roommate for burgers, and, most importantly, SWEET POTATO FRIES. I am very excited about this, as it will be my first order of sweet potato since january or february. I did very well, my lost readers, I never touched a single potato during lent, even when faced with potato salads, soups, chips, and french fries. I'm glad i was able to keep that up, even if i was made of fail in terms of bog updates. we'll work on it.

I'm Currently sitting in my penult wednesday of classes, the specific class being PPD 358 Urban and Regional Economics, one of my "for funsie" elective senior spring classes, my other is my next class, Drawing 101. Other electives I have taken was Art History 499 Art of the Prado Museum, last semester while in Madrid, and Journalism 499 Latinos in News Media, my freshman year. I need to get better at choosing electives as the only one of the classes that has been pure fun was the Art History class, and that was only because i was in Spain and the class was physically held in the Prado. The teacher also happened to be one of the best I'd ever had while at USC. I went to go see my Jour 499 professor from freshman year yesterday and he was so nie and showered me with compliments praising my talent and intelligence, saying that I would certainly get a job at some point because of it. I hope he was right, from his mouth to God's ears, otherwise it's always nice to hear such things, especially right now, from someone that knew me 3 years ago. Drawing 101 is not so fun, because i mentally cannot focus on anything for 3 hours straight, twce a week, especially ONE THING, ONE DRAWING. I go moderately insane in the during of that class. I thought it would be good for me, you know teach me how to focus better, be more detail oriented, but no. I don't like it. I'm also not very good. My econ class is surely interesting, different from what I expected, but still falls pretty safely within my wide scope of interest being that I'm obsessed with Urban Structure, culture, and classes, and recently fascinated by economic policy and practice.

otherwise I am absolutely BAFFLED by the passing-by of this semester and I'm not too happy about having to take 3 exam finals, wth??

love is Jed Bartlet

By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity

("Kokomo"/ Beach Boys)

SO WHAT IS UP, GUYS!?

i know i did a really good job with the whole "posting everyday during lent" thing. really awesome, diiidn't even last a week. I'm really proud, as you should be too. but i tell you, i did NOT eat ANY potatoes.....and that counts for something.

I'm also doing a really good job at work right now. Not doing anything, I don't know where the mics are, nor do i really feel like learning, i just started and will son be ending this gig, so i'll just sit here and look pretty and work the lights and screen whenever i'm supposed to. We're watching a little video thing in honor of Warren Beatty who is coming to speak tonight.

I work with two other girls one is a senior and one is freshman. To be honest I couldn't tell you their names if you asked me, and I feel a little bad about that, but I'm not entirely positive that they know mine either. They're nice enough, but I find the freshman nicer than the senior....which I guess i could expect. The senior got engaged about two weeks ago and I overheard the story of how she was proposed to, but i don't entirely remember what happened, it seems really cute though, nothing amazingly original, but certainly sweet. The day that I met her, i saw her earlier in the day, before meeting her, and made a mental comment on what an unfortunate skirt/shirt combination she'd chosen to wear out in the world that day. She spends the majority of her time here at work refreshing her twitter and browsing Perez Hilton and some other gossip site that I am not familiar with. Never ONTD, which is my preferred internet celebrity gossip outlet. I don't think she owns actual shoes, though that's not really necessary in California and she has yet to wear her curly black hair in any style other than an indiscriminate bun well-settled on top of her head. She knows everything about how things function here in the booth and she's the one that actually does everything. She, also, has a tattoo of a snowflake on her foot, and of a treble clef on her right wrist. I really like both of these tattoos in subject and placement and I think that she would probably be a good person to hang out with every once and a while. Like if i went over to a friend's place to hang out one evening and she were part of the group of friends that were there, that could work.

The freshman makes me realize that there is a really big difference between people born in then 1980s and the 1990s. she never knows who any of the guests we have in class are, and then when i question other cousins of my mine born in the 90s, neither do they. I MOST DEFINITELY knew who Maria Shriver and Warren Beatty (two people that they did not know) were when i was their age, which was only a few years ago. I'm afraid to ask them if they know who John F. Kennedy Jr is (well, was). I became obsessed with him when i was 9 and he opened the Oprah fall season that year, introducing his George magazine with Cindy Crawford dresses as george Washington on the cover. sigh. Anyway, as I mentioned, I do find the Freshman to be more accessible, which I think could be chalked up to the fact that,w el, she's a freshman, and there is always that little bright-eyed bushy-tailed feel to them. On my first day another girl who works here, who's name i DO know, exclaimed, "---- you are always SO stylish and put together", upon seeing freshman. I have yet to be wowed by her style choices, although today I do like her shoes. They're from Urban Outiftters, as is her dress, i believe. If "urban outfitter" hipster-indie fashion is what constitutes as "so stylish and put together" then i don't think i'm going to be all too impressed. I'm not saying that I'M "so stylish and put together" because i'm not, but I have been told have a particular type of style, which i'm also not sure what kind it is. But our freshman is as stylish and relevant as one could be when they're from Fresno. I don't know a lot about this place, but I'm almost positive it is everything that I would imagine it to be: small-to-medium conservative city in the middle of California where edgey is shied-away from (although, i'm still unsure of what the word "edgey" really refers to, but i'm almost positive it has to do with urban culture) and the community relishes in being the "largest-city" in the region. it could be whatever it is, but that image will remain in my mind. Freshman is a liberal girl from a conservative middle-of-nowhere culture, which a lot of times more likely means that she's a moderate girl that is fascinated by the idea of diversity and gay culture, it's "cool", as along as this fascination is coupled with open-mindedness in crunch. She works the cameras and sometimes preps mics when the senior can't do it. She obviously knows more than I do at work, but she's worked in this department longer than me, so that's really not an issue in my mind.

to them i am probably the random girl that our boss decided to hire at the end of the semester and has never worked in the booth, but knows all the other bosses. i have sporadic style and have an odd handle on pop culture and random facts. i have a computer than i'm usually on (like them) and have a blackberry that I'm usually simultaneously on. I don't talk very much, only sometimes jumping in on conversation, rarely initiating the exchanges. i always bring water and sit by the light and screen buttons, so that's what i do. i twirl my hair whenever I'm not working or typing. I am also a senior.

oh the assumptions we make about people from the little we know. it's one of my favorite things to note and the revisit as more information is gathered.

love is what we think but never say

"If you don't want a wild one, quit hangin' 'round with me, you knew right from the start, that's my personality"

("Wild one"/Those Darlins)

I never noticed these flowers until I picked them to adorn my grandmother's casket the day we buried her in December. And now, I see them everywhere. Funny how that works.

Love is en la ave de la paz
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile