Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Today has been a great day and a crappy day at the same time. I really love it when that happens, because it give me a chance to diagnose what was good and what was bad, to weigh them, and to decide whether it was really all that bad. Especially when something happens that is both good and bad. Makes me want to get down and draw some graphs --and I totally might if I hadn't just got done with physics.

So I woke up tired. I tossed and turned all night, dreaming about people being disappointed with me. I worry about that too much. How do you stop worrying about something like that? (story of my life). There are too many logical trains of thought for which the only outcome is that I shouldn't care at all what other people think. Why then, is it so hard to not think about it. It even effects the way I dress, which is just stupid. I mean, as long as I am clothed it shouldn't matter. I really don't have any pants that don't match my shirts (because they all look like crap to begin with).

So enough of that. LEGOs was ok, but after that cerebral palsy video I had had enough of the guilt trips. Then, having chapel right after that, I actually got mad that they showed the scenes from Passion of the Christ where Jesus was getting beaten half-to-death. But seriously, they do their best to shock us out of our systems at every single chapel. To traumatize us with as horrific a spectacle as they can muster with a week's notice. As if we don't realize that crappy stuff happens, but what can we do? If we haven't gone on missions trips knowing what we know now, more hellfire won't make us go (unless we are planning to go next time, then who knows). Do they expect us to quit school and go rescue those girls in whatever country where all that unmentionable crap happens? I don't know. They just make me angry at the world. It might be cool if they did that to us every once in a while, but seeing it every other day? Hitler said "If you tell someone something every day, they will start to believe it" -- a statement which has been proven by modern psychology according to my highschool dual-enrollment psych prof. All they are doing is anesthetizing us.

After that I went to discrete math. I have a D. I don't understand how I am getting that grade. I study the material. When I take the test, I KNOW the answers. They make perfect sense to me and I recall examples from the book with such a perception of clarity. I am going to ask to see my most recent quiz.

Then I did some physics and went to cosc. That was fun. In fact, after that my day really brightened up. I had a really great time with my Korean teacher at dinner. It was the best time I've had in a while. I really needed it. Before our lesson, we talked for a while and then she was like "instead of a lesson today, lets just check your homework and have some free time, but still learn about Korea". So we did that. She wanted to show me some Korean music. We walked and talked to Spear Chapel, but it was taken, so we went to Belcher and sat in one of the practice rooms and took turns playing songs on the piano. It was alof of fun. like a dream. She sang in Korean while she played, which was just gorgeous. I don't know many songs, but she seemed to like them. It was great, too, because it was "real". I mean, she has a boyfriend. Like, it wasn't under any kind of dating pretense.. Anyway, that was great. Why can't all girls be that way.

"Don't try to swim to shore, because you can't make it back. Say three words like they are the last you will ever speak."

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Funny how Someone seems so deep and knowledgeable until you know what they are talking about. (and you don't know what I am talking about)

I have 4 days left of not talking, 5 if you count today. I will not be doing this again.
I wrote my essay for English class during English class. It turned out alright. I got one really bad peer review, and one really good one. Both seemed very emphatic about it, and related details that made me sure they actually read it. I have no idea what I am going to change. Maybe nothing at all.

I talked to an ex girlfriend of mine yesterday, one I still kinda have feelings for. (it was texting, but it was faster than normal. It was more like IM. I know, bad place for a heart-to-heart, but I don't really have options right now) We had a good, long conversation. It was really nice. At the end of it, I mentioned something about how I have been keeping alot on my plate --I was referencing hootenany, Korean lessons, piano lessons, etc.-- to keep from becoming too complacent, and she told me "at least that part of you hasn't changed."
That really struck a chord with me somehow. When she had told me she was seeing someone else, before, she told me that I was changing and that we were growing apart, but she never told me how. I asked her, and I know that she didn't tell me the whole truth. (She has been doing that alot for a long time now. It doesn't bother me as much as it did when I first realized it). She told me that I have "grown up" and become "so focused". I responded, "that's how". and I said that I think I know what she means. I really can't say whether I am a different person in the same way she meant. I don't think I am so serious now, but if anything, more afraid. I know I don't, but sometimes I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. It's hard for me to hear about problems the world has without taking them upon myself, and that coupled with my tendency to plan years in advance (while simultaneously neglecting the immediate) makes for a very fearful person. I say fearful instead of stressed, because stress draws a person's personality thin and causes them to push against thin air with all their might. Like you are straining all your muscles at once but not really moving anything, because you already know and just haven't accepted it yet. It's worrying about things which you already know the way they will turn out. Fear is wondering what will happen. Crouching in a corner and building your tiny bridges to work your way out, hoping they aren't crushed. The further your bridges make it away from your corner, the worse it becomes, because you might never make it back. I am afraid for my future. At this point, if I so much as fail a class, years of my life are taken off. If I graduate college and don't get a job immediately (assuming the economy will only worsen from here), I could become homeless. My entire life rests in the balance of the next few years. If I don't do this exactly according to God's will, who knows where I will end up? I guess it's the same for everyone else here, too...

It's irrational, but yeah, it keeps me on task.
-----------------------This Blog Ends Here-------------------------
[...like two hours later]
-------------------Might as well be a new blog----------------------
oh man! I didn't post this blog, which means I can still write about the rest of my evening.
ok, so I went to church and I heard some testimonies and stuff. As soon as I heard them say "started speaking in another language" I knew something was up. I was totally weirded out, to be honest. I did not expect that at all from this church. --But I have been asking God to stretch me, and here He is... stretching me. So after the service they say some things about baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is totally legit. I know it is because I've personally read the passages in the Bible about it, although several places have skewed the meaning alittle, I think. Anyway, they invite everyone in the back room for a baptism. The people who have received it would dish it out to the people who haven't. They said several things which made sense and I decided to go in.

When I walked in the room, they said "If you have never spoken in tongues before, you will speak in tongues before you leave this room!" which kinda scared me. It was weird, yeah. They kinda worked themselves into a frenzy praying outloud in tongues. People were saying things like "accept God" or.. I really don't know, but what they were saying was good when I could understand it, as far as I could tell. Questions were flying through my mind like "is this really something that God wants us to do" "what if God has gifted me some way that isn't tongues?" and, all of those are legitimate questions. to be honest, I still really don't know if I agree with what happened in there, but I do know that for a while in there, I felt it. Whatever happened was a real thing. I didn't pray outloud, but my mouth was moving without me, and only stopped when I stopped it. Was it the crowd having that effect on me? I really don't know. It was a strange and frightening experience. I know that at least some of the people there, if not most of them are real Christians. I have seen the evidence in their lives. Are they deceived? Their prayers were real. Their emotions ran hot, and I could feel the whole room and everyone in it with my eyes closed. I could feel the heat from their breath and the intensity of their thoughts clouding the air. I prayed the whole time for God to show me the truth in it, was it true or not. Here and there, my mind would go blank, but my mouth was still moving. At least 3 people had their hands on me. I had never received a baptism of the Holy Spirit before. I wonder if that's really what it is. They say that speaking in Tongues is a gift from God. So it is. They say that I can ask for this gift and receive it. I am sure they wouldn't deny that a person without the gift isn't necessarily lacking for the spirit, but "Ask and you shall receive". Why wouldn't we want every gift we could get?
They called it a "prayer language", and they said that when I got home I would doubt it, but that I shouldn't let the devil trick me out of the reality of what had happened. My friend who invites me to go there congratulated me and said he was excited to hear my prayer language next time I came, because I will be able to speak then. I'm nervous and alittle embarrassed, because I doubt so much. I don't want to judge them, because the Lord works however He wants, and it isn't my place to tell them that they are wrong. I think that maybe God did give me that gift when I asked for it, and maybe I should cultivate it alittle, sure --but it isn't a gift I was born with, and I know that I have other gifts which God has given me to cultivate, I think, more than this one.

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. (Romans 12:6-8 NIV)

Monday, March 29, 2010

thrown into another bout of confusion. it isnt so bad this time. it's weird that a person can't relate. everything will be made known to us in the end.
So I was trying to spell tarantula on my phone, and the first five letters were rediculous, so I tried pressing each key to make the word on T9 longer and longer until it wouldn't grow anymore. What the heck does varanutlareizusielatreyalurganew mean and why it is in my phone? I tried googling it and got nothing. lol, after this I bet the only site that pops up is my blog. I'm gonna try that when I am done writing here.

Right now it is 9:22 and my roommate is asleep. He has been asleep since earlier. He will wake up for some reason tonight (probably when I go to bed) and it will be interesting if he can or can't get back to sleep after that. He normally naps during the day, stays up late saying he is too awake to go to bed, and then complains all the next day for lack of a good nights rest. He hasn't done that much lately, but the nap today is only the start.
Speaking of my roommate.. lately we have had a small conflict about how he looks at my computer screen while I am doing things. Like, he will seriously read an email I am writing out loud to me while I write it, and then get "mad" at me for telling him to go away. Can he not see how annoying that is?

Yeah, the irony is just killing me.

I had my first mandatory hootenany practice today. I didn't do great, but I didn't do poorly either. I have one of the easier parts. I was chewing on an apple stem on the way in. It was lots better than the normal toothpick I chew on when I am nervous. I think I will do that more often, instead of just tossing the apple stem when I am done. I don't mean I will save the apple stems, just chew on them whenever I finish an apple.

I wonder if God makes people for each other, and I wonder if our parents were specifically chosen to produce us. Like the people who will be alive in the end times are secretly Belgian blue cattle --heh, monsters. I wonder if God is consciously breeding for future generations, by allowing for the complexities of different personalities to come out just right for each other, and for circumstances to happen so perfectly. Or maybe God just leaves us to each other --definitely affecting things here and there-- but maybe there is no one person for everyone else. Maybe we are meant to couple off and make it work with whoever we end up meeting and cliquing with, leaving it up to chance whether we meet someone easy to get along with or not.

It is 9:42. I have been texting while I blog. Now it is 9:43. I will have to do laundry tomorrow, and I need change for a 20. "it burns on the way down" Mom wants me to write her an email about what I have learned from not talking. I think I will do it, and I'l keep it alot shorter than the average blog but I bet it takes her 3 weeks to read it. "it all smells the same"

I read this book recently. The sound and the fury. It was good. It was a puzzle, without a doubt.

I opened the gate and they stopped, turning. I was trying to say, and I caught her, trying to say, and she screamed and I was trying to say and trying arid the bright shapes began to stop and I tried to get out. I tried to get it off of my face, but the bright shapes were going again. (1.700)


It wasn't until half way through the chapter (before that) that you realize that Benjy can't talk, but he can hear. That quote sticks out in my mind. Benjy is sortof in love with this girl, (it isn't love like we think of it, though. It is naive and innocent and really sad,) and she leaves for college, and he freaks out when he sees her friends without her, walking home from highschool. Back then they didn't know what to do with people like Benjy, so he never learned anything, and he just freaks out and cries for alot of the book, but hearing things from his perspective is an adventure --and a really confusing one at that. Not that I identify with that quote at all, but it was one of the moments in the story where Benjy's character really started to make sense. (ha. a contradiction in truths).

"crashing through the parlor doors, what was your first reaction? Screaming drunk disorderly, I'l tell you mine."
This is post #70.
I have 7 days left of Lent.
I have spent the past 5 hours racking my brain. That assignment will be turned in late.
The album I am listening to has roughly 12 more minutes left.
It is my 3rd playthrough of this list tonight.
The list itself is 2.2 hours.
It is 2:20AM
I need some sleep. I would still be working on my homework right now, but I cannot think straight enough to come up with any half-decent algorithms right now.

I have a hootenany skit, which I am doing with some people I don't know, and a person I do know. That's going to be fun. The skit is called "silent monks sing hallelujah" Today I have been thinking about the way people attribute things to themselves. For example, my hootenany skit. Every day, I reevaluate small parts of my self-perceived identity by observing my own behavior in situations. Sometimes, I am surprised by the way I act, and sometimes I am not. This is usually a pretty subconscious process, and it is not often that I am really very shocked at all by something that I do. Maybe more often than some people, but whatever. When I signed up for the hootenany skit, I reevaluated a part of my identity, specifically (and very abstractly) my sense of belonging. When I identify myself, I am now Zac Slade, son, brother, student, Christian, roommate, etc. etc. etc. etc. "LU" in the hootenany skit. Furthermore, I almost never identify myself all at once. I do it on a purely case-by-case basis. Someone asks me my name, I give that to them and probably don't think of much else.

But back to the person as a whole. (I am referencing myself, because I am the sole subject of my observations here. Maybe other people are the same way, maybe not.) How much do the small parts of our identity, like that one, effect our personality, our responsiveness and our attitude? I guess, little things don't individually, but maybe alot of them will....... Someone who excels in several small, but noticeable, areas might lean toward becoming conceited... Someone who does the opposite might lean the opposite.. but more abstract than that..... I can't hold onto the idea I am trying to write down right now.... got it. A person who... heh. lost it again.

I am almost out of toothpicks.... I need some more.

goodnight

"and you never feel good or bad, only strange and unprepared --because you never saw it coming or it leaving."

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Today I woke up at 1:30. I didn't do much of anything all day. I "read" most of the current chapter in CS2. I really didn't want to be reading that, and had a very hard time concentrating.

I got a haircut not too long ago. That was something. It is very different from my usual style, but my piano teacher emphasized that she thought it was really cute. I should have seen this coming since I told her to do whatever she wanted. I had a hard time getting used to my reflection in the mirror. At first it looked alot like someone I know, so I made her change the bangs. I really do like it. It just changed me so much, and it came across to her as if I don't like it. She said she was very sorry I didn't like it and all. I kept trying to tell her I did. I really wanted to just give her a hug because of the face she made. I felt so bad. I just raised one arm and put it on her shoulder, which is something I have been doing more often lately. I am not very physical, and alot of the people here are, so I have been trying to be more that way. I remember my brother used to put one hand on my shoulder and tighten his grip and then let go. He didn't do it very often, but that used to have a really profound relaxing effect on me, so that's the first thing I am trying to learn how to do. I am not very good at finding a place for my hand on people's shoulders yet. I don't have alot of opportunity for practice. I hope I did it right that time. I wonder if that's an acceptable maneuver for guys to do to girls who aren't "significant"... I'm sure it is.. Idk. I think the thing that really made me think it was ok to do to her was that she touched my arm before we went to cut my hair and asked "are you ready?". I was caught off guard by it alittle. I was glad I couldn't talk. I might have made a fool of myself.

I think I am a primarily verbal person. My mom wasn't. I would tell her I loved her, and expect her to remember it. I learned that that was wrong. She feels loved when people do things special for her, especially things that reduce her work load. I would do something as simple as the dishes and she would feel loved, but we had some difficulty communicating until I figured that out. She would do chores for me, and I had to learn that that was how she was telling me she loved me. I remember once she read this one book by Dr. Dobson, and it told her about how trust is earned, and some other stuff that may have been true, and might have worked for some other kids, but I am not other kids. After that, when I would do something wrong, she would tell me that her trust for me was diminishing. I hated that alot. The first time she told me that I felt terrible for like a week. Not being trusted is the worst thing, especially when it is your family. I can kindof understand with little things, and I know that there are some areas where I don't necessarily deserve to be trusted -- like the food in the fridge (someone stole Sean's pancakes, and it wasn't me this time, but I have been asked about it at least 3 times). You know... I think that bit about being verbal and my mom and stuff will be the topic for my next essay in English class. We have to write a narrative about a life lesson we learned.

Right now, I feel really close to God. It's like God is with me, and it's very comforting. ... I've been tearing up alot lately. Not always sadness, but just whenever I feel something strongly, and it isn't even really like I am crying, but my eyes feel wet for a second like I am about to cry, then they go back to normal.

Friday, March 26, 2010


So I found this totally bad-A picture online the other day. The context in which I found it wasn't so good (it was used along with a description of black liberation theology -- which is honestly kindof scary... for that matter, plain liberation theology is almost equally as scary). Really, though. The picture scares me alittle. Just think of the imagery behind that. What it means. The implication that Jesus was furious with us while he was on the cross is terrifying. As if, while Jesus was complacent on the outside he was prying himself off the cross in spirit. I don't think I agree, but the picture is still awesome. It is called "The Suffering of Christ" by Guido Rocha. It is meant to help Christians cope with hardcore issues by emphasizing the suffering of Christ on the cross so that they can identify with it. .... I don't know about you, but I don't find this picture very comforting (but again, I think it's awesome).

Today I slept in alittle, because I don't have early classes on friday, and I skipped Computer science because it was a Work Day on the syllabus (which means I would just be asking questions about the homework, and I can do the homework just fine. I have issues with the quizzes, and I can't really ask about them because I don't know what will be covered on them until they arrive. They ask so much about coding theory, which is good to know. That kind of thing makes you a more comprehensive programmer, but it's hard for me to grasp enough to even ask intelligent questions.

I took a discrete math quiz today, and I think I did really well. It was on lists, functions, arrays, and boolean operators. On the way back from that I saw this girl who I have noticed here and there, but I don't know who she is. I plan to try to get the courage to go talk to her as soon as I can talk.

I need to go to sleep earlier next week. Hopefully my teachers won't assign so much homework. Next weekend I will finally get all the parts i need to get my ps3 up and running. I am going to spend a good portion of the weekend playing FFXIII. I don't plan on playing it much during the week. Maybe like an hour or two every other day when I don't have homework.

My friend who dyed his hair with me is dating the girl who helped us now. I think I mentioned that before. They are getting really serious really fast. As soon as I can talk, I am going to talk to him about it. He is a good friend of mine, and it will be kindof a "just lookin out for ya" kind of talk. I will try to keep it from coming across as rude, but I think he will understand where I am coming from. I'm just gonna tell him I think he should be careful. He aught to know as well as I do that once you get momentum like that, it's hard to slow down when you get to the line's you've drawn. Then again, it's different for everyone. With my previous girlfriends I took things almost unreasonably slow. (I've only had maybe 4, but they were good girls. I stayed with each of them for a pretty long time, and I still have alot of respect for all of them.) Maybe he is more confident in his own self control than I am.

I've noticed that most of my blogs recently have started on really depressing notes. I haven't noticed the tone with which they have ended. After this blog, I plan on fixing that. Even if I feel the need to push my negative thoughts out of my head first, I am going to write those, then move them down and write the positive parts of my day above them. (Unless for some reason I think that my exact train of thought in that particular blog is important. That happens sometimes).

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Today was good and bad. I am scared crapless, just as I have always wanted to be. God has blessed me by torturing me. I will come out of this a better person. I will drown out my sorrows in a river of tears. I will fall apart in my happiness and lose the person who I am. I will be utterly destroyed, but will be rebuilt. I will suffer humiliation and frustration. I will find my way through pools of acid, and arrive on the other side with my skin melted away, but my soul at rest.

Everything bad has ended so well, God will show me the way. I have had the troubles of my loved ones laid to rest in my heart. God has and will answer my prayers. By Gods grace, I have been rescued. God has forgiven me, and I can live my life without the burden of my regrets.

Dear God, stay with me.

I should go to bed RIGHT NOW.

So today I had my piano lesson, and I did better than I did last time. She has a piano piece that she won't let me take home with me because I will memorize it when I practice and I won't look at the sheet when I play it. She wants me to learn how to read notes, instead of just figuring the song out and remembering it. It's good. She is a good teacher.

Today I did my taxes. I had no idea where to mail them, and I could not find anyone who knew what they were doing (because my taxes are out-of-state). I don't know if Pennsylvania has a state tax or not, but I downloaded some kind of form, filled it out and mailed it to them. It was a C-EZ. Dear God, I pray it was the right one. I also filled out a 1040EZ, and I mailed that to the Austin, Texas IRS place. I looked it up online, and apparently I was supposed to mail the Pennsylvania form to Missouri. I am almost sure I have been mislead, but if the IRS are really so efficient, they can figure it out for me (or come talk to me in person). I have heard from knowledgeable sources that the IRS doesn't care whether you file your taxes or not when the taxes would result in them owing you money (which my taxes would result in them owing me about 75 bucks). I think I am going to include a letter with all future tax forms, saying "Your system confuses the hell out of me. I have no effing idea whether or not I mailed this to the right place or even filled it out correctly. Your website's instructions are lengthy, boring, complicated, and utterly worthless. Thanks."

Tonight, after everything I had to do was done, I went to chapel (it was about midnight). The front door was locked so I went around to the back. When I came in, I put my notepad on the piano and was going to play. I realized I had forgotten my music. I checked for my phone. I had forgotten it. I suddenly wondered if I was alone in the building and wandered around to investigate. I saw a girl in the balcony, and I left her alone. I went down to the prayer room, and before I read the Bible I reached for my notepad to read that for some reason. I had misplaced it and forgot that I left it on the piano. I had nothing with me, no distractions. It was nice. I read some Psalms, wholeheartedly. I prayed a little, and my brother came to mind and I prayed for him. It was one of those really great moments with God, I cried alittle. When I was done, before I left, I went up to the balcony and wrote to the girl "what are you praying for" and she told me and I wrote asking if I could pray with her. She said yes, and I sat silently and prayed. It was awkward at first, but then the AC turned on and the white noise cancelled out all my peripheral thinking. I could sit and pray for the girl, and the things which were on her heart. I prayed for God to resolve the issues she told me about, and before I left, I prayed a blessing or two on her. I wrote to her "time for me to go, God bless you. I'l keep your friends in my prayers". She said ok, gave me a smile, and I left. It wasn't an awkward ok or an awkward smile. I think that time was really genuine. It was good. In that moment, we weren't two people who didn't know each other. We were two believers who knew God and had gathered at that time, for the unified purpose of seeking God's guidance --offering our lives and our burdens up to God yet again, telling God we love him, and thanking and praising him. That was really special, I thought. I hope I have more experiences like that.

"You can take everything I have, just don't leave my side"

ETA.. you know, I wish people would do that more often.... I mean, I don't want to intrude on other people's time with God, but I would really like it if people came up to me and asked to pray with me while I was praying. I think that it is better for more people to pray than to pray alone.
I shouldnt let it get me down so much. I know I am being lied to, but I can't tell how or when ... And I wonder if it hurts Lani as much to talk to me, as it does for me to talk to her... But she still fights for our friendship. I don't understand how she can feel that way after the way she acted, after the things she said.. I don't have any person on this earth, outside of my own family, who I can trust absolutely. And I cannot rely on them for everything, since we are so far apart.

"I am a song, and you have forgotten the lyrics."
...and this one

choose the one who loves you more
AAAAAA! i got another copeland cd and I reeaaally feel this song XD

No One Really Wins

Not necessarily for it's meaning in reference to relationships, but the things it says have such better meaning than that. It talks on some really great thoughts, which I have had before too. I identify with this song --and the music sounds really cool in the chorus.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

It is 1:00AM when I am starting this blog.

I had my Korean lesson today, and I don't think my teacher was too mad that I didn't get all the homework done, but I am excited about the next few weeks. She says she wants me to keep a journal in Korean during the summer, so she is teaching me lots of verbs and things. by the end of the month I will probably have a pretty big list of them down, though maybe not all of them memorized. She looked different today and I couldn't figure out what it was. She said nothing was different unless she was gaining weight (which I don't think she is, but I'm not a very good judge of that kind of thing to begin with)... eventually I decided that it must just be her sunburn lol.

*sigh* I'm a jerk.

My legos presentation was today, and we were pretty much annihilated by dr. Green. My teamsters mislabeled the axis on our graphs, and on the slide which was supposed to have graphs for different motors, he put up three graphs of the same motor, with slightly different finishing values (labeled motor 1, 2, and 3.) Thinking about it, the only logical conclusion which Dr. Green must come to is that we totally BS'd it. --which is very possible, I have no idea what my team has been doing. The past two projects I did almost exclusively, (by choice, I'm not complaining about that. I did that because I wanted to), and I decided that I didn't want to do this one alone, and so I tried delegating some work to them, which they graciously accepted. and let me tell you, almost NOTHING got done without me doing it or explaining it to them in detail. I'm not entirely sure at what point in the process I stopped trying to manage them. Eventually I just stopped, and I told them I wouldn't make the next meeting. Then the meeting after that was scheduled during youth group, so I had to show up late (I told them in advance, they were cool with it. Youth group went three hours). Let me tell you how long they spent at the meeting I missed: all night. and how much work had they done when I got back from youth group? They had managed to lose alot of my information. I'm really, honestly, confused about what of our information was accurate, what was from the faulty tests we did at the beginning, and what was complete BS. Thats what I get for being impatient. If you want something done right you do it yourself. To top things off, our machine broke immediately after presentation. Like, immediately. We ran the program, it did what it was supposed to do, then broke. The class clapped for us. It was epic.

It wasn't all bad, though. The other teams had crappy presentations, too. Not nearly as bad as ours. They all had good data and good formulas and stuff, just their machines didn't all work completely. How does that work out? Our machine broke, and we had bad data, but it pulled that crap the whole meter in almost a second and a half. [like a boss]

I don't feel like thinking much about life tonight. I could just fall asleep forever.
...
I learned recently about a guy who my sister's "ex... sortof" boyfriend is counselling now (her bf is a social worker). So the patient had lived in a small hotel room for the past 28 years. He lived there out of the courtesy of the manager, who didn't require pay. The room the man stayed in was roughly the size of my bathroom. For all of his most recent sober memories he has wanted to be reconnected with society, but cannot. He is addicted to who knows what kind of drugs, and does that all day long every day when he is not being counselled. He sits in that little, dark room all day, every day, for 28 years, doing drugs, escaping reality, because for every second that he is even half way sober he realizes what he has become. He is old enough to be in a nursing home, but they will not take him. They say they wouldn't take him even if he went through rehab (Which, for what little it could have helped him as he is so far gone, will probably be doing nothing at all under Obama's healthcare bill). He has no family to connect with. He has no friends. He has, essentially, no way out. He is doomed to sit in that room for the rest of his life, or commit suicide.

I prayed for him a while ago, and I caught myself in my prayers, praying that if God would take my earthly life to rescue that person, that he would do it. But, after thinking more about that, I decided that I wasn't really praying that entirely for him. My prayer was not selfless. Is it possible to cause good by dieing? Like, if an honorable man gives his life for a cause, doesn't the cause just lose one honorable man? Or do they gain a martyr? I guess it depends on how many people know about the cause. For this man, if someone honorable found a way to die so that he could have a good life. Like, an exchange almost (that sounds either childish or satanic, I know... but it isn't meant to). Nobody would know. That person wouldn't be a martyr, would he? He wouldn't have died for a widespread cause, just to bring an old man back into society. Would it just be one less honorable person? I think... maybe if the old man found God, it wouldn't be so bad....

*deep breath*
God, please help me to love people the way you do.

It is 1:45 and I am finishing this blog.

"a few leagues off the shore I bit a flashing lure, and I assure you it was not what I expected it to be - But I still taste it's kiss, that dull hook in my lip. It's a memory as useless as a rod without a reel."

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

10 days left of the vow of silence (11 including today)

--which is weird because i posted 14 before, right? and that was yesterday. i think i am doing my math wrong... whatever

This was a really long day, and I am ready for the week to be over. I have been utterly defeated by my legos class tonight. Experiences like this are a part of the reason I don't like people.

*gets up and shaves*

I feel alittle better now.

Lately, I have been thinking less with words and more with impulses. It's interesting, I really like it. It's almost as if, before, my emotions were restricted by the words I would use to describe them. I would feel something and then get frustrated with the question: "what am I feeling?", and I would change my self-perception to match the meaning of words that made more sense. A few times, I would describe a good feeling as "like falling in love", but since love doesn't really mean anything specific, I would be left confused and kindof hurt by the end of it. Over the past few days, instead of coming up with feelings to match my words, I have tried to come up with elaborate ideas to convey what I am feeling --things which I don't think we have words for. I think it has really opened things up for me, and left me lost in thought a few times. (I much prefer being lost in thought to being confused with reality). For example, earlier this morning I was hit with a hot ray of sunlight, and I was filled with feelings reminisce of some really old, good memories (the kind that one might all-too-easily hide behind their sad outcomes). I tried thinking of what it felt like, and I came up with this -- take the dying thoughts of a person being strangled to death, make them a picture and invert the colors (they are no longer so full of anger and fear, but I wouldn't call it the opposite of being strangled to death.. just the picture inverted. It's much happier, but it isn't like being brought back to life), then pour them into a glass and drink it (it's a warm drink). That's what that particular ray of sunlight felt like.

It is almost 3 in the morning, and tomorrow is an important day. It is the day on which my legos team presents our piece-of-crap presentation, which I threw together in the last minute (and made as wordy as possible, so nobody would finish reading a slide before we change them. That way, nobody realizes that we didn't know what we were writing about). Also tomorrow, I have to pay close attention in discrete math class, because there will be a quiz on Friday and I haven't memorized my notes yet. I will have to do the homework for chapter 15 in computer science and turn it in before 2:45. and on top of that, I will have to write roughly 2 1/2 pages of Korean for my first Korean lesson after spring break. I wrote one page over spring break, it takes a long time to come up with unique situations and write about them. It's like writing a short story ten times in a row for each assignment. and I have to be awake enough to share with my teacher in the excitement which she will theoretically feel when I tell her I am official for Korea.

My roommate told me at 1:30 that he was expecting to be up late tonight. I didn't think this late, but I have been doing things this whole time too.

Dear God, help me and my grades.

"Hold my hand, Love, you're here and then you're gone, like a dream -- like the daylight."

Monday, March 22, 2010

I have 14 days left of my vow of silence. This morning was really slow, but the afternoon went by quickly. I think mornings are going to be slow for a while.

I have finished my part of the registration process for going to Handong next semester. Unless something unexpected happens, I am official for korea.

Today, I'm thinking about how people get more imaginative when they are tired, and I wonder where the line is drawn between that part of going to sleep, and the stage where people are so tired they just don't want to talk. I guess, not that I really want to talk when I am tired and imaginative... maybe I do. I will experiment with that.

I have had "you are my sunshine" stuck in my head all day.

Last night, lying in bed, I tried to make myself have a nightmare. I stared at the boxes on the bunk above mine, for some reason convinced that the best thing for me at that very moment would be to be scared beyond reason. I looked so intently at a specific black box above me, that it seemed to grow for a good long time, until it was all I could see, but then I blinked and I was back to normal. It was the weirdest thing. For a second, while that was happening, I felt like my lungs were going to come out of my chest, and when I snapped back to reality, my heart was beating incredibly slowly for a good several seconds. I wondered if that was what it was like to have an "out-of-body" experience. when my heart sped back up, it sped up very quickly and went from odd-meter to odd-meter.

I thought maybe I was willing myself to death somehow... Lately I have had some really weird fantasies about dying and suicide. Like, sitting in the balcony at chapel, I had a really vivid daydream where I stepped on the chair in front of me and did like a swan-dive off of it. I started drawing a picture to take my mind off that. Over spring break, my sister was driving down the highway with me in the back seat of her little car, and I caught myself daydreaming about opening the door and somersaulting under the wheel. I wondered if I could land my head under the tire before she realized what was happening and swerved away and stopped. Before that, I have, on several occasions imagined various ways my head could be chopped off. It's really sick, I know, and it isn't like I want to kill myself, but for some reason, death is just a really desirable thing sometimes. It isn't like I am any more depressed than I always am, not that I am always depressed either. Am I happy? I have been, but I can't pick out how I was happy or what stopped it.

I played piano at chapel yesterday and today. It felt good to be on a real piano again. My keyboard is good, but It is nothing like the real thing. And besides that, it is too short for all my songs. I have to compress them down to.. i think the keyboard is 4 octaves, idkrn. It is on the top bunk at the moment and I don't want to climb up there and count them. That's when I am happy, when I am playing piano or drawing. Those are things that I enjoy, and things with which I can easily praise God. In highschool, I remember at both of my highschools I asked the band instructor if they would let me learn piano. They both said they needed more trombone players, "so no". I wonder where I would be if I had learned earlier.

Out of curiosity, I just looked up the word "insane" online for a definition. You know, as long as I was talking about being a danger to myself earlier. So here is the definition I got: -Insanity is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity manifests itself as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to one's self and others, but not all such acts are considered insanity- That's about the best one I could find. I couldn't find the dimensions of the "spectrum" without getting into specific illnesses. I can't wait to take my psychology elective :L :)
This song makes me really happy right now:

Should You Return :: Copeland

Sunday, March 21, 2010

We had our floor sisters over tonight --hangin out in the lobby. They brought us cookies and it was fun. My friend Sean, with whom I got my hair died black, is now dating the girl who died our hair. They thanked me for introducing them. They are moving really fast, like, they are pretty much all over each other, but I haven't seen them kiss. Maybe they arent doing that, maybe they were sparing us any worse awkward than we already had.

Maybe I am just paranoid, but I am getting more and more confident that Someone is putting on my headphones when I'm not around, because I keep having to re-adjust the sizing. I guess it isn't such a big deal, but I told my roommate to please not mess with them because they are expensive. I am really getting the feeling that he is trying to get rid of me, and our suitemates by being deliberately grouchy -- there is a good chance that we will be shuffling rooms when/if I leave for Korea, and I am beginning to think my roommate doesnt want me back.

To be honest, I really didn't know if I wanted to stay in this dorm when I came back from Korea anyways. (and I might switch dorms when I come back next summer). It is just that.. there are a few people here who I really like, but most of them have left, and I feel like slowly, this dorm is narrowing itself down to being just people who I don't particularly like. .. I mean, well, they are my friends, but I don't consider myself to be very close to them, and I don't see myself getting much closer, and.. well, I just can't see myself becoming really good friends with a good percentage of the people here.
Solution: move to a new dorm, right? no. I really didn't like alot of the people I knew and hung out with in highschool, I didn't like alot of my friends in elementary school. I just don't like people in general, I don't even like myself. lol, if any of you happen to know me on facebook, a good example is to look up my friend John Allred. He is one of my best friends, and I hung out with him and his brother and a friend down the street almost exclusively in Alabama, but ask any one of us and we can tell you that we really hate each other, to this day, but we have learned to get along to the point that we would be suffering a loss if we ceased contact. Now, I know how to have a good time and enjoy myself around people, and every now and then I come across someone who I just really connect with (in my entire life, I could probably count those on one hand.... MAYBE two hands...). So the point is, if I go to a new dorm, I wont like them either. It will just mean that I will have to get used to new idiosyncrasies and cope with a new roommate.

A question comes to mind, though. If I get a new roommate next time I am here, what can I change about myself? What is it that I have done that might make my current roommate not want me around? well.... I really don't know... I will ask him as soon as I can talk.

This is my first post about other people on this blog.. I honestly didn't mean to time this right after the other people in my dorm came decided to start reading my blog, hahaha, but it is a true, honest coincidence that this is what is on my mind tonight. is it wise for me to post this way right now? Probably not, but if I am not true to myself on my blog, if I can't write what I honestly think even here, then I will more than likely lose interest in blogging here, and write somewhere else, or not at all.

"...but every time I hear your voice, I die a little inside..."
I have very recently begun to explore the possibility that my efforts toward self-improvement could possibly be building me into something self-destructive. ... heh. that doesn't make sense, which is kindof interesting inasmuch as it is representative of the way sweeping generalizations are easily false or true, but can be proved the opposite when confronted with details. In fact, the entire paragraph preceding this sentence has built into a sweeping generalization (about sweeping generalizations), and this sentence is built to look like a sweeping generalization. This paragraph is a parallelogram, but a parallelogram isn't this paragraph.

Anyway, allow me to explain my hypothesis. ... where was I ... oh yeah. So the idea is that I am self-centered. I worry so much about my problems and the way I look to other people. What does a normal person worry about? I am always comparing myself to a standard which I cannot even define, so I make it up and base all of it's attributes on areas where I lack, which end up being ubiquitous, because the areas which I perceive as lacking are lacking by comparison to the standard which is defined by those areas.... Well, now, that isn't completely true (lol, I am refuting another generalization). I know that several of my standards are based on what I have learned about the "Righteous Man" as defined in the Bible. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't tell me how to make small talk. ... Maybe I should narrow my focus down to just social interactions. The problem with doing that is that studying social interactions for the purpose of being a more adept socialite is a quantificational fallacy. Not only that, but in practice it would inevitably lead me to commit countless other fallacies -- to name a few (and feed my ego -- I'm totally on wikipedia right now), historian's fallacies, fallacies of the single cause, and what might become most prevalent, a perfect solution fallacy.

Now, without discussing the problems with any attempt at perfecting social interaction, lets go back to talking about me (case and point, right?). So, what I gather from the way people act around me is that I'm not doing so poorly in that area anyway. I have good friends, and they seem to be pretty cool with me in general, and I also with them. But I constantly beat myself up anyways. I guess, maybe I'm just insecure, but how do you beat insecurities? Where do you draw the line between confidence and conceit? On that, is it better to draw the line too low or too high (assuming that there is no correct place, or that the correct place is impossible to hit)?

So a few(1) of my friends(friend) are(is) starting blogs(a blog) and they want me to read theirs, and they think that they will read mine in exchange (at least, thats the hint I'm getting...) Not a bad deal, I suppose. It will be an interesting change from my other blog, in which I kept up a similar exchange, but with someone who was much farther away -- and it was our only real mode of communication. We haven't talked much lately. We kept that up for a long time. Maybe I should try and get back in touch.

I just read the first blog in that set. Here is where I run into problems with writing my thoughts online. If I am going to blog here seriously, then maybe I don't want people who I talk to on a regular basis discussing my posts with me in person. Honestly, if any of the people in my dorm comment (as in, with their mouth, to me, in person, not on line) to me about a single post on this blog, I am blocking them and putting this blog on "private" which is something I really don't want to do because it will make it impossible for me to have any audience at all --and, given the length of these posts and the nature of my writing, I don't think my odds of generating an audience are very good at all to begin with.

... ok, I'l follow the blog.... *damaged pride*

Thursday, March 18, 2010

ugh... I HATE division in the church. all our worthless separation of denominations, because some group of people was too PROUD to accept compromise. When I say hate in that sentence, I.. I feel the word. If I spoke it, it would be from the bottom of my stomach and it would carry the entirety of the weight on my heart, vibrating with every bone in my body. The Apostle Paul would be infuriated by the state of the Church today, I am sure of it.

I am especially disgusted by it tonight after having read a few scattered portions of a book called "The Portable Atheist" at Barnes & Nobles tonight. In one section.. hold on, I am going to Google the quotes so I can get this accurately to you guys.

OK, there are several questions raised. I won't address all of them tonight, but feel free to ask me questions and I will do my best to answer them quickly, briefly, and to your satisfaction. Here is a link to a youtube video with all the questions in it (not their answers or anything, it's just text displayed on the screen. I has music, but I had it muted when I watched it so I don't know what kind. The questions are straight from the book as I remember them, and I read them not 30 minutes ago, so I'm fairly sure that's them.)

Be careful watching that. It will shake your faith.

This is from Charles Templeton's "Questions to Ask Yourself", and can be found in the book "The portable Atheist", which is a collection of literary works negating the existence of a God (I noticed, primarily the Christian God, which is an irony of Atheistic principal, but I suppose cannot be used against them given the cultural predominance of Christianity in America).

1. Why are there literally hundreds of Christian denominations and independent congregations, all of them basing their beliefs on the Bible, and most of them convinced that all the others are, in some ways, wrong?
2. If all Christians worship the same God, why can they not put aside their theological differences and co-operate actively with one another?
3. Why, in a world filled with suffering and starvation, do Christians spend millions on cathedrals and sanctuaries and relatively little on aid to the poor and needy?

Those three questions... my thoughts exactly. The church, the whole world, kindof disgusts me at this point, but primarily in a kind of "from this perspective... I can't see myself bringing about any large effect in terms of revival or resolution to the issues which plague us." There will always be war, and all I can do is look out at our world and wonder if Jesus felt anything like this when he said "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who sent you, how often have I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"... man... saying that makes me feel like i need to step down from my high horse. ... well... I guess I'm done with that topic for now... but I am still outraged at the church.... I think I might stop going to church altogether.. oh, hahahahaha wait, hahahaha I already am not attending a church. hahaha. --ok, that wasn't so funny. Maybe I should attend a church.

On a side note, I think the band "Collective Soul" (or at least their album "Dosage") would be much better off if they got a new lyricist. Their instrumentals are really cool sometimes, but their singer and lyrics can be really annoying. --like in the song "Generate" which sounds cool until the chorus starts.

Now, for my nonexistent readers, so I don't feel like I sound like a hypocrite for not attending church. First, let us examine the primary purposes for a church (this is going to strongly allude to the previous discussion).
Reasons for the existence of --and reasons to attend-- church:
1. To surround people/yourself with believers and bounce ideas off of them
2. To teach/learn about God
3. To help grow/grow as a Christian
4. To develop relationships between/with believers (a church "family")
5. To expose/be exposed to ministry opportunities on a regular basis

alright, now lets pick those apart:
1. I attend a Christian university. I am surrounded by believers and pretenders alike.
2. I attend a Christian university. I am required to take Bible classes and to attend like 5 devotionals a day (or risk being late to class).
3. If devotionals and messages are what cause you to grow as a Christian, then I am a fortress. They arent, but seriously, growing as a Christian is more than going to church, and who "grows" from being at church anyway?! Can you tell me what the message was at your church 2 weeks ago? (no help, I want this off the top of your head) Most likely, you can't. Messages given at Sunday morning services (at the churches which I have visited since I have been down here in the "Bible Belt") have been shallow and easily forgotten. This also relates to 2.
4. Most of my friends attend the same university I do. Also, the last person who told me to value my church family told me that the reason was because some of the old people could help me fund missions trips (which are great, but I'm not gonna be your friend just so that you will spot me when I want to travel)
5. My school does that for me.

Those, and on top of all that, I am really disgusted with the church right now. *groan*
terminat pro pantonas
by His grace and His mercy alone.
"when i feel lost, i am not at all."

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

"sure, umm, look i dont know exactly how long it will take to find that. let me get it to you by tomorrow night. i will email it to you. you can just sign it and return it whenever. you know, if you turn it in this week or next it wont hurt."

right now i feel like inside me, my thoughts dont fit completely inside my body. they are like a bird coming out of an egg, all slimy and raw, but totally true to themselves. not yet corrupted by my own restrictions. brand-new emotions. i dont ever want to lose this, but i know that tomorrow will bring more new things. i feel my hurt, every small scar on my heart bleeds right now, but i live and i love. and God's love for me is an overwhelming force. i can't feel bad for so long. It sounds selfish, but my prayer without self-consciousness is that God would bless my future, and will bless the future of those with whom i am involved. my fears are so alive right now, but i feel a completeness of joy just underneath that. i feel like if God were to reveal his love for me anymore, then I would fall apart completely.

is this just a spiritual "high". i hope not... saying that makes it seem like it will not last very much longer, like God's love and feeling it is something one does only on occasion, which leads me to a sure misconception that it is nothing more than a short-lived hysteria. But how do i keep this alive?
the answer.... i dont. God gives and he takes away. if he chooses tonight to give me a taste of the extent to which I am loved, who am i to demand more? Dear Father... I would love nothing more than to meditate on your law for the rest of my life. Can you arrange that for me?

writing like this makes me feel like a religious nut. I sound just like it. but who, knowing that loving my God drives me to love more, to work at improving myself, and to find a greater peace beyond my own abilities, would try to take that away from me? and who should be angry if I try to show them the same peace.. the same God, the only real God. well, only someone who needs even more to find it. the fact that they would so mindlessly invent hatred for us drives me to a stronger belief that my God is real, and is here with us now. Here with you at the computer.

Someone said it is always easy to acknowledge the presence of demons and the devil in our world, and it is easy to fear them and credit our evils to them; but it is so hard to acknowledge God or credit the good in the world to his will.

if someone else had written this, i probably wouldnt finish reading it. i would read half of it and feel slightly angry for no reason and skim parts of it and not finish. why? well, something is only really deep if it is dark. I write so much about escaping the fears that society has trained me to live by. i am beginning to realize that to be truly fearless is to write like this, to talk like this, and to think like this, without caring what your friends get annoyed by. people say they dont want to "shove their religions down each other's throats". i wont.... but i will certainly not restrain myself if i have something to say that glorifies God. at least, not anymore. I will say what is good, and i will say it often. praise God. haha, i have not talked for 28 days. i still have 18 left. the worst is certainly over. Praise God.
"a teardrop falls from up in the heavens, drowning the sorrows of angels on high, for the least of the hopeless, the helpless the loveless. My Jesus, his children, he holds in his eyes."

Good lyrics.

i feel brighter today. pendulum swing slowly.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Today is day 27 that I haven't talked. Sometimes I wonder why I am doing this... then I remember.

Today I thought of something really profound, and I remember wanting to blog about it, but I didn't write it down, and I'm not thinking straight right now for no apparent reason. I just remember, that I didn't want to write about adventure anymore, because society has enough problems without me pointing them out all the time, and I didn't want my blog to have that as a theme.

I was googling the lyrics to a song that I don't know the name of, and I came across an interesting blog. A really poetic girl, a deep thinker. I'm glad I caught it. (good taste in music, too) I'm following that now.

Tonight, I am feeling strangely hurt. I guess it's to be expected, because of some things that happened recently... but... *sigh* my heart beats so slowly and heavily right now. I can't hear my own thoughts over my pulse in my ears. maybe not so strangely, but just... i cant keep this up... i feel like i am lying to so many people about the way i feel. I don't have any confidants, and it's especially hard without talking. heh. .. I called military onesource and talked to a counselor the other week, but.. i dont know what happened. i couldnt talk to them. It was like talking to anyone else I don't know. "i'm good" "nothing is up" "school, just like every other day" "and how are you?"

i cant stop thinking that i dont belong here... or.. that i dont 'want' to belong here. is it that i hate everyone and everything else and like the way i am? or... do i love everything and hate myself? a servant cannot serve two masters, can he? hahaha i hear right now: "the river wept for you, zion. the stones cry out, bells shake the sky! all creation groans.... shhhh... listen to it"

Monday, March 15, 2010

it's tonight.

so this is really nerdy, but i like this quote:
"I'll be waiting for you so... If you come here... you'll find me... I promise"

and I wonder why people like that idea... waiting for a person who you love for so long... I guess it means that you really love them... but.... yeah, i guess it totally makes sense that people like the idea... I wish I liked it a bit less, because whether we realize it or not, we change. and it hurts.

I really should move on. that was like a month ago, and I still feel it... I guess that's just another piece of the melodrama that is my life.

... I shouldn't discredit myself so much, but if I give myself any credit at all, then I am building myself up; working towards a worse end: conceit. Is it better to destroy my self esteem? How does one find middle ground?

It's funny blogging about this. I am almost positive nobody reads this blog, and I wouldn't write in it so much if I thought that it had regular readers who I knew.. but I still post this online for the whole world to see if they look for it. why? not because I want the attention... not because I want anyone at all to know how I am feeling... maybe I just want really badly to know someone who completely understands and knows the way I feel. Someone who feels exactly the same way. In fact, I think maybe I have wanted that so badly that I have projected some of my own insecurities onto people around me. Come to find out, not with much inaccuracy, but carelessly nonetheless.

Kinda makes me feel useless. My introspection and observations will not help anyone, because there are few, if any, who feel this way, and if there are, then people shouldn't be so afraid to talk about it, so that nobody feels alone. If I finish college, I will design computer parts which will more effectively, more efficiently, glue people to chairs. Did you know that (and this is a legitimate statistic. My roommate was studying it for class) that one of the highest causes of death in the US (like top 5) is fat, lazy, inactivity? What a bunch of losers we are. In all our millions of people, we apparently feel unable to make some of life's most obvious decisions (like... wear a seatbelt. honestly? we are being pulled over for this? i'm not even going to argue about it), so we elect leaders to make our decisions for us --our best and brightest, elected from among one of the largest selection pools in the world, to carry our entire nation into the future. To ensure a better, and brighter tomorrow, and... well.... obama get's put into office.
So spring break has been good so far. Jessica's water pressure is like... air. i mean, before i came to LeTU i probably would have enjoyed it, but now it just feels like nothing compared to the "rips-the-skin-off-your-body" water pressure ive become used to in the quads.

i'm going to do my english homework first because it's easiest, but i should really do my physics and comp science.

Sometimes I entertain the idea that if a girl were ever to come up to me and tell me how meaningless our lives seemed if we didn't consider God, and how even then our purpose here is so simple that we can't help but make it ambiguous; or how we are always restraining ourselves, even against better things; or how too many people realize societies problems, but a unified effort at resolving it is impossible; or how the whole world is at our doorstep, but we get majors in things with no eternal ramifications, all in preparation for a life at a desk, but what is stopping us from seeing the world and maybe even changing it. any of those things and so many more. I might just ask her to marry me on the spot. haha, what a test of a person's resolve... but if she said yes? I would probably do it, and if we turned out not to like each other so much... well, I think that any to people can "make" it work. on the other hand, we could always run from our problems. work for just long enough to get $6-800, then spin the globe and go where your finger lands.

I want to live a life full of adventure, but I can't help but think I'm entertaining a romanticist idea there. Like I've been lied to, and am keeping up that lie in myself. I dont mean "Indiana-Jones" adventure. more like.... maybe.... "Yes-Man" adventure, but not even so romantic.

I told my sister that in the summer, if I have lots of extra money, I might set myself up for summer school and then buy a ticket to.. idk, maybe Spain, and do my school there over the internet. I could stay at a cheap hotel and go to a cybercafe to get my homework from some community college back home. She said "good luck" and acted like it was a bad idea, like I couldn't do it or like I would run into problems on the way. What problems? I fail to see any issues with that idea. I hear "you might not know the language" so what? All I need to do is survive on my summer-job money for a month and a half. If I get a cheap hotel with a continental breakfast, I'm set for food. (What meals I don't horde from the breakfast, I can get TV-dinner style.) That's generously 1000 dollars. then, the round trip ticket out of here and back is generously 800. I'm almost positive I will make that much this summer. Transportation? If I get a place in the city, I can walk to a cybercafe more than likely. lets think worst case scenario:What if I am in a bad part of town? If I am killed, I am. If I get mugged, I do. Making it back will be yet another adventure --and those are less-than-likely.

I guess... the point is... I still don't know what fuels our fear of new things like that... but I don't want to think that if I do something fun, I am doing it to prove a point.... am I? If I am, is that necessarily a bad thing?

anyway, I'm done blogging today

Friday, March 12, 2010

it's really unfair of me to feel so pushed-aside. especially when i'm not very good at time management either.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Like a moth to a fire. It hurts so bad to think about it, but there are some mistakes nobody should ever have to learn from.
Dear God, you know the ones who need my prayer. You know who is on my mind, and you know them better than I do. Protect them, I pray in Your Son, Jesus's name, who died on the Cross so that we, too, could triumph over pain and death.
Feelin this song:
Just Say When -- Kate Micucci

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

...I can work myself into a frenzy, but maybe I'l never have the courage to actually do it...
Someone said "they don't die from the cold without, they die from the cold within"
-really a beautiful statement- "...and I just can't stop denying that our brothers are in miserable pain"

Ok, that sounds really morbid... well, it is. But the point of that statement wasn't necessarily just to be morbid. The point is how "cold" people are -- as in "you are neither hot nor cold, but you are lukewarm so I spit you out of my mouth". Cold as in, the opposite of passion. (ok, if only you guys could have lived my day with me today. This blog, my train of thought as I write is totally serendipitous... or maybe just coincidental, but I think serendipitous to situations I've been in all day). Do we have a word for the opposite of passion? *totally googles it* --well, I found "apathy" and a bunch of things that mean apathy under antonyms to passion. I am thinking differently, though. I think passion as in a good thing, and by antonym, I am thinking on like an axis. Think of it like a numberline, with neutrality at zero, passion somewhere around ten, and the opposite of passion ("cold") being somewhere around -10.

!! Back on track. So I'l let you guys infer how people would die from that kind of cold within. HINT: I'm pretty sure it's figurative. Second part: "can't stop denying that our brothers are in miserable pain." Let's approach this from several different angles within a Christian perspective. Say that the speaker is a Christian, speaking about our fellow Christians, and I don't just mean the ones out doing things and actually in physical pain -- for what reason would a Christian not minister unless he or she were suffering? Even if they are in confusion, to be apart from God's will for your life is to suffer, and I am convinced that very rarely does God's will for a Christian NOT involve ministering. That's a sweeping generalization, but look at what I have said, not how I have said it. I am confident in the point I am trying to make.

Another angle, say that the speaker is a Christian talking about non-Christians. Of course they are in pain, they aren't with God. Whether they immediately realize it or not, they are lost. Do we subconsciously deny that? I do sometimes. Yet another angle, non-Christian about non-Christians. This one is a bit difficult for me to recreate. I was raised in a Christian home (sometimes I wonder if that invalidates my views concerning the well-being of non-Christians. I think it does not.) The non-Christian generally looks happy, could they sneakily realize that the rest of them are not? that they are not the only unhappy person they know? or do they not know that their emptiness is not an uncommon thing? (That sounded really judgmental.......Two wrongs don't make a right)

Moving on --> what, then, do I do? Honestly, I have had this sneaking feeling for a long time that this is not what I want to be doing. I am not meant to be doing this, but I am trapped here by my conventions. I have spent the last 13 years preparing myself for monotony. I have been raised in such a specialized way. I have been trained never to bark or bite -- to sit and to stay and to never beg. (my friends know that I have taught myself better than to not beg. An interesting idea I have been entertaining: mooching, when approached from unique angles, throws people off balance. People are generally taught not to mooch, and are taught to be generous and share, but also to take possession of what is theres and to not let go. When they are confronted with a situation, to give, or not to give, they are immediately thrown into a loop; kindness or prudence. Obviously that doesn't last long. The human response to being caught in that kind of loop is to act impulsively, and the result is determined by prior conditioning: parents.) AAH back on topic.

The more I think about it, the more this sneaking feeling, riding on my back, grows. If I ignore it for long enough, it will only continue to grow until it is satisfied. What eventually will happen is that I will outlive my usefulness. I will grow old and incapable of carrying that out, and it will continue to grow heavier and heavier until it crushes me. What I really want, is to be beaten to death by people who hate me. I want to be tortured for hours on end by people who want nothing less than to hear me renounce God -- and, with God's power behind me, I want to stay strong and never give Him up. But, then I am confronted with my worst fear. Sure, I want to be killed by people who hate me and God. What scares me, is being kept alive by people who hate me and God. God help me, it is not what happens inside a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out.

This longing, like a thorn in my side. I want to drop out of college before my debts cannot be forgiven. I want to go somewhere worse, to preach God's word, and, ultimately, to die.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The pendulum is swinging the wrong way, and I'm pretty sure tomorrow is gonna suck, but if today was any example, God will give me comfort in even the saddest situations... once again, though. I feel like I am making this into melodrama. Like, honestly, I am making a bigger deal out of today than need be. At any rate, it would be uncouth for me to write about the issue until it is resolved. Therefore, I won't.
...
lol
God bless ;)
Today, the pendulum begins it's journey back.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Today was an exceptionally good day.
I got to all my classes, collected on some coffee and a scone, finished my project for LEGOs class. (the project wasnt very fun, and neither was finishing it).

I stood next to this really pretty girl in the lunch line today. I see her around sometimes, and I think she is engaged to my themeleos, haha. I didn't talk to her, but I wish I could have. Not that it would matter anyway, since she is probably engaged, but she is just one of those really good looking girls. I opened the door for her and she smiled at me. That's the end of that.

I checked out a book: The Sound and the Fury. It's been cool so far. I hope I get lots of time to read it, but this is yet another distraction and it isnt helping me get any korean done. However, I haven't played any video games today, which is good. It is better to be distracted by a book than by a video game.

Then, on the way home from my LEGO's meeting, it was raining. It wasn't bad, though. I got soaked, but it was warm rain. It was great. It was like... idk what to compare that to. I hadn't had a good long walk in the rain in a long long time. I guess.. it was like falling in love with God all over again. and maybe just comparable to falling in love. Idk. I would like to think that I have been in love before, but that didn't last nearly as long as we both thought it would lol. and things like that are easy to question after the fact.

The song that I just got done listening to makes me want to travel. It is called "recycled air" by the postal service. It's a really mellow song. I love it, but listening to it makes me wish I was anywhere else, especially on a plane travelling somewhere.

I think that next winter, I am going to try to get a big overcoat. I have been in a few situations where it would have been nice to have a coat to give away, but I only have my sweaters. I have that big army coat, but I kinda like being alittle cold, and that is slightly too warm sometimes. Also, I can't help but think that too much camo is a bad thing. I try not to wear more than one piece of it at a time, and not every single day. I only have one sweater that hasn't been to Bosnia or Kosovo with my dad, but it's a pullover, which makes it awkward to give away, and also it's fitted for a much wider person than I, which makes it awkward feeling in general.

Well, it is 1:30 and I need to go through my korean flash cards at least one more time to feel good about myself tonight... :) so goodnight

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Today was real productive. I got some good piano practice in, did some work on the legos project due tomorrow, and I did the easy option on the cosc homework... and thats all i did today.

Piano practice was real cool, as usual, but it was unique today because the two "good" pianos at Belcher were taken by clarinet players. ("good" but still bad. One is terribly out of tune, and the other is an electric piano which plays in MIDI. I know, because of the way it sounds and the fact that it says "MIDI" on the top.) I ended up on the "bad" piano, which is in tune, but you have to hit some of the keys really hard to make them play. I could imagine what a person would sound like if thats all they had practiced on, but were playing a normal piano at last. I mean, it would sound good until every time they hit that one or two notes here and there which would be especially loud and out of place.

The legos project went ok, but I get so frustrated with my team sometimes. They are good guys, both of them, but it is like I have to spell out every single little step to them. They sit and watch youtube videos (they didn't today, but they do) and then when I tell them to get on task, they are like "what do you want us to do?". Which is the worst question, because at any given time there are so many things I would rather that they do rather than watch youtube videos. I get overwhelmed and just wish I could yell at them. "I don't know, but do SOMETHING!"

Today they didn't watch youtube videos, but I had my cosc homework to do, and I wanted to get back to the dorm quickly, but one of my teamsters left early, and the other kept asking me questions, the answers to which I thought were obvious, but proved to be circular --because of the way he was asking them. I got frustrated because I didn't catch on to his line of thinking, but knowing what I know now, I think I would have been just as frustrated, if not more frustrated if I knew, and that is solely because it was circular and therefore would not have ever allowed us to finish our project.

I took the easy way out on my COSC homework for lack of time, but that doesnt mean I am slacking. I read the chapter and did all the example work this time, so that I would know the material. Problem being I did all that tonight, leaving me with no time at all to do the work that needed to be done.

Speaking of which, I just found another example which I should do because it looks really pertinent and I don't want to miss anything.

It is 1:00 --Signing off
Today has been REALLY mellow and unproductive. Well, not altogether unproductive. I practiced piano for like 2 or 3 hours (not all at once). That was great.

Yesterday, was ok, too. I took a Discrete Math test, and got like a 85 on it, which is great. I studied for it. my previous test I got a 55. I plan on bringing that grade up a-lot.

Also yesterday, as I was walking away from the coffee shop without coffee(<-Dear God), I walked up the steps outside on the way to LH and a pretty girl walked by and said "Hi". Now, this is gonna sound really stupid, but not only does that not happen very often, but it wasn't just a normal "Hi". It was a *Hold eye contact 4 yards in advance, slow down as you pass, shoot a coy smile in your direction, and then say 'hi'* "Hi". One of those. It would have been a perfect opportunity for me to say hi back, and maybe even pretend I wasn't doing anything and wasn't out of flex money and ask her if she wants to have coffee. Alas, it would have proven quite difficult to write all that down, along with an explanation of why I wasn't just saying it, and still be quick enough to not make things totally awkward. So instead I smiled back, nodded once, and didn't say hi.
...
Maybe I will see her again after April 3rd.

Now it is 2:00 in the morning. To be honest, for some reason, I think I would benefit from having a nightmare tonight.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

it's kinda like being in love with something that doesnt exist. like a vicious cycle of ever-deepening insanity.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Reading Psalms today, I came across #123. It's a good one, I think.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

"yeah, no secrets."
"but doesn't real love last forever?"
so today I took my physics midterm. I failed it, I know. I wrote down a bunch of formulas, but I don't think I got a single answer, or even close. "oh Zac, I'm sure you did fine." no. I mean, I didn't write down a single answer, and I didn't even get close to writing one down.

roughly 12 hours ago I feel like I could have done that all at once, easily. why couldn't I do it today?
well, thinking about it. I decided that I am completely useless without my notes.

oh, and speaking of being useless. I am seriously considering deleting all the video games on my computer. it's a tough decision to make, but it is a good one if I can bring myself to make it.

Also speaking of useless, today I was thinking about how I live my life. it seems to me that when I pray, I am praying like God favors me and like I have such a hard life; when I sin, I feel like I am the worst person in the world... I had some really good examples earlier, but I forgot them, so we will have to work with what we have. The point is, my life is like a giant melodrama. I over-dramatize everything. My suffering is, in reality, insignificant by comparison to the suffering of people who... well, who actually suffer. Missionaries and all those starving people in wherever the last earthquake hit, you know, I don't keep up with those things (another fine example of a lack of purpose). I notice that other people around me are the same way. It isn't my place to judge them, but seriously, most of my friends and I have it pretty good. And thinking about that just makes me feel really worthless. I spend all my time looking for things to do, and if I can't find anything, I complain about it.
Then, when I think about how worthless I feel, I think I am giving myself way too much credit. I am not worthless, neither am I worth anything more than anyone else. I am "just" Zac. I am not a great leader, who changes the lives of millions of people on a daily basis. I am not homeless, and I have friends. I am a member of the majority class in this country. Brown haired, blue eyed, white American, with 60,000 in debt and a strong political opinion. I am totally spoiled.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

like an open book
"casual, shy and obedient, curious and courtious."
like willing yourself into a coma

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

I'm still a total jerk. God, aren't you changing me?

...

I'm changing my blog name to "identity crisis" if I still think it's a cool idea tomorrow.
like a single page missing from a book
I've studied my Korean flash cards today. I still need to do the homework for that. Maybe I will do it right now.
Today, I really like this song:
Love Song For a Savior -- by Jars of Clay

and this one:
Like a Child -- Jars of Clay

in fact, today, I really like this whole album:
Jars of Clay (by Jars of Clay) lol

Monday, March 1, 2010

God, Please send me a sign.

----------------------

So today I finally got with SoMang for piano lessons :). That was great. She plays really well, and I always feel like when people play piano around me, they are giving me a gift. Like, they have worked with their hands on the piano for so long, all culminating to this, their most recent performance, and I am here to hear it. Makes me feel real special to think of it that way, I guess... but at the same time, (in what I hope is not just an effort to make it not all about me,) thinking of it that way makes me really impressed whenever people are playing piano. Like, especially impressed. I really appreciate that kind of thing. Someday, when I am really good, I will give that gift back, and hopefully give the credit to God --after all, I can't do it without him.

Right now it is 1:30 and my roommate is doing fundamentals of engineering with his NXT team.

Learning Korean has been a battle. I am always like "I will do this in just a second. This other thing really has to get done". Then, before i know it, it is midnight and time for bed. Consequently, on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday before lessons, I'm stuck cramming.

I just finished every comic of XKCD, so that's another distraction off my list. Next, I have to beat Lego Star Wars, and beat Overlord 2. Then, I will be distraction free. I don't go for 100%, just game over, and I usually knock these out in like 2 hour increments: incrementing once on Friday, then once on Saturday, and again on Sunday if my homework isn't so bad. I don't watch TV.

I made the decision about 3 weeks ago to give up all my "relationship" (as in, with girls) endeavors to God. It's been difficult, and kindof awkward. Like, I really don't know what it means quite yet, but I am praying and reading up on it. I mean, the idea is that I don't worry about who I will marry, don't worry about whether or not I have a girl in my life, and just leave it all up to God. 'Cause He is ultimately in charge of that anyways, right? and besides, who of us, by worrying, can add a second to our lives? So where I come to a conflict is, should I even try when I am around girls.... and what does that even mean!? I am no good at any kind of flirting or "hitting-on" or whatever. I'm just a nerdy guy. I guess all I can do is be "myself", but who does that? That seems almost impossible from any angle, and the problem with that approach is that I am approaching it from an angle. Being one's self is not something that is meant to be "approached", and... well, therefore is somewhat unapproachable. How do I do it? I work hard at being honest with everyone, and I avoid putting on fake emotions (although I really do that alot), but does it mean being completely open with people? does it mean being afraid of everyone, like I am naturally inclined to be? Constant fear is an undesirable characteristic in any case, and it isn't one that I want to entertain, but if I am trying to change myself, then who am I? at any given moment, I could be acting like the person who I was yesterday or the one who I want to be tomorrow, but never the one I am now!


ETA: a question, as long as I don't know who I am, how do I know that being afraid of everyone isn't just something I "want" to be? not that it is a good thing or anything, but what if I am projecting that onto myself out of insecurity? just like a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Something that I keep recalling to mind whenever I think about insecurities like that. It is totally random, but I remember the time when I was speaking with Ian and some others, and he asked the group something like "on a scale of one to ten, am I a good person" or something like that, IDR. So on that, I accidentally went on kindof a tangent about how I really liked that he asked that because everyone is insecure, so whether you consciously realize it or not, each and every person wants to know the honest answer to questions like that from their friends. So, in kindof a frustrated voice, Ian replied: "I am not insecure."
But that got me thinking.... what would it mean if he really wasn't insecure? That would put all my sociological theories to rest, and paint me, for myself, an alien. As if for some reason, if one person who I respect is not insecure, then I am the only person who is. Would I accept that? or would I paint him as prideful? But based on my current theories regarding pride, I couldn't do that because of the question he asked earlier. I would be thrown into a loop, and would ultimately come out with very low self esteem.

....

I should really get some sleep.
like hearing your heart beat in your ear.
Map
 
my pet!