Update: Worked like a superstitious trinket or expression believed to have magic powers!^[1]

1. Or, you know… a charm.

Ishi: “Do you know why I’m shaking it like this?”
Me: “Of course. The act of shaking transports more water over the surface area of the ice cubes.”
Ishi: “Not only that, but the warmer ice-melt is also more quickly transported away from the ice cubes, allowing water faster access to the ever-colder center of the ice cube.”
Me: “Sweet! Not quite the Mpemba effect, but it works for me!”

This is what happens when two geeks at heart spend the latest heat wave watching back-to-back episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

Never fear! Scripturion is here! I was so excited to be invited to “Go on. Waste a few minutes.”, over at The Last Visible Dog, one of the many incredibly unique and interesting blogs I’ve had the pleasure of discovering through the January NaBloPoMo Blogroll. Katherine had discovered that Marvel will let you make your own superhero and of course I couldn’t resist. Meet Scripturion!

She is my superhero self. While I am a quiet, unassuming biblical studies major at a tame, private North American university who wears her curly red hair in a ponytail and has never been to Israel, or even Egypt or Syria, Scripturion is a wildly intelligent and daring biblical scholar who spends her days (apparently) inappropriately dressed in the Judean desert!

She carries a walking staff in her hand which helps her navigate the tricky slopes around the openings of Cave 4 and Cave 11 at Qumran. Her belt is where she stashes brushes, calipers, a magnifying glass and her camera to photograph stunningly rare finds which she ferrets out of the vast desert sands with her supernatural ability to smell scroll leather and ancient clay pots.

She is wearing khakis and an olive green tank top because she is a superheroine. If she were real, she’d be wearing a long sleeved shirt and khakis that weren’t painted on, because she would know better than to dress like Jessica Rabbit in a country that is part Muslim. Her sensible hiking boots will allow her to be on her feet in scorching sands while protecting her from the snakes and scorpions she might disturb in the caves and abandoned stone walls.

The white bandana around her neck stays magically snow white no matter how much dust she crawls through exploring Solomon’s Stables. It signifies how a superhero far greater than she, Jesus Christ, won forgiveness for all humanity with the stunning feat of His atoning death on the cross and resurrection, wiping sin’s stain from our grateful, repentant hearts and leaving them pure white. It keeps Scripturion mindful that her dedication to seeking revelation in the Scriptures is because of God’s ultimate revelation to all.

The bright gold crown on her forehead is the birthright given to us all by our Father the King. He calls us His sons and daughters, making us princes and princesses. It is heavy and reminds her always of the grave responsibility that comes with so much privilege and power!

Her name is Scripturion! which comes from the Scriptures she seeks after and the word centurion. A Roman centurion was the leader of his own group of 100 soldiers… Scripturion leads one hundred of the best biblical scholars in their quest for their own discoveries in the Judean Desert!

This was so much fun. Now it’s my turn to issue the invitation to go on! Spend a few minutes exploring your own superhero self! I hope you have as much fun as I did.

When I was invited to Twitter by some much more “happening” friends of mine several months ago, I completely dismissed the idea, because Twitter? Seriously? Have we reached some kind of pandemic, pathological desire to share our every waking action with everyone we know and many we don’t? I was confident that my Facebook account and a blog was about all I needed to be plugged in these days.

I should have known I’d missed some kind of boat when an elder at my church suggested Twitter might be an effective tool to publicize our events. I finally signed up for an account to research the possibilities, but it really still seemed pointless to me.

After seeing TwiTip, though, I think I might have to admit I was far too quick to dismiss the power of the tweet.

Who knew?

Delicious, because my e-mail inbox actually scares me some days. It’s currently sporting 348 shiny unread e-mails, and for reasons that Mr. Mann seems to intuitively understand, that fact just makes me want to go back to bed and pretend I have the flu. Delicious, because in ten easily-digested articles, Mr. Mann lays out a recipe for dealing with the waves and waves of information, conversations, questions and can-you-do’s that crash against the shore of your mind relentlessly.

Delicious, because he promises that if you deal with the flotsam and jetsam, you’ll have time to write the long, conversational e-mails to the people you enjoy! Instead of sitting on them for so long that it feels silly to even try to answer them, and then you feel like a failure as a human being. I totally do that. And I would really like to not do that.

In addition to all the other impulses I’m going to be giving into this year, I’m going to be giving full rein to my productivity fetish. Lifehacks, GTD, 43 Folders, and the like. There! I am admitting the depths of my geekgrrlness to the innernets! This is who I am, darn it! I would love to be a foodie or a knitter or make lovely homemade bath fizzers from scratch, but realistically, I’m a just a geek.

But maybe… Maybe if I get all my ducks in a row this year I’ll find some extra time to be a more well-rounded geek!

1. The guy who runs the productivity website 43 Folders