Reinventing
Well, a lot’s happened since my last post, which, by the way, is apparently oh-so-hilarious for my brothers to sing out loud for no apparent reason. -_- In celebration of my 18th birthday (yay, I survived to adulthood) I stripped my room of its furnishings and repainted it, a job that was long overdue. However, due to a few delays, it took longer than expected to get the project finished, the result being that now I have way too much stuff to do before school starts, but a nice new room to do it in. ^_^
This will be my senior year, even though if things had worked out last year would have been. I have a bunch of stuff to do that I kinda skimped on during my other school years, plus a lot of personal things I want to get done, so it’s going to be really hectic. The best part is, I’m taking November off in order to participate in NaNoWriMo more fully this year, and so there’s a bunch of extra stuff getting stuffed into September and October. Yay.
This year I’ll also be teaching my little sister kindergarten, her first year of structured school. I have high hopes for the project, and I just hope I can not let my personal problems get in the way of making it a great year for her. Now if only she’d obey my every word without question, we’d be golden. ^_^ Add that to helping out the family, trying to make money, keeping up with my art and my writing, and trying to become more involved at church and with volunteer work, and I’ve got a crazy year ahead of me.
Well, I decided long ago that I’d rather be a workaholic than a procrastinator. I guess it’s about time to start working on that.
This past year, and especially with the transitions in church the past months, I’ve really felt the desire to step up and become a better leader, both spiritually and physically. I still deal with the same problems, the same insecurities as I always have, but more and more I want to push all that aside and try to follow God’s leading. I can feel my flesh trying to hold me back from becoming closer to God, and it makes me angry. I feel like now of all times, going into the next weeks and months and years, I have an opportunity, almost an obligation, to reinvent the person I am. I don’t want to waste it this time. I desperately want to become someone worthy of respect.
On another note, I’ve been thinking about starting another blog to chronicle my writing life. I’d love to just talk about it here, but I don’t know if the people who read this blog would really appreciate being thrown headlong into the intimate details of books they may or may not be interested in. Especially during NaNoWriMo, the discussion could get really random, really fast. I’d hate to feel like I was spamming anybody.
Or would everybody just love to read about that? This blog was supposed to be about my life, but it seems to have taken a decided turn towards the spiritual aspects only. What are your thoughts?
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention, I have a new laptop computer! Well, it’s new to me, anyway. I feel so much more productive now. ^_^
end of an era
Ok, it’s time to spill. This morning was inspiring, yes, but it was also mildly depressing (and not just because we were at the end of the line and missed most of the food.) And as everyone knows, there’s nothing like some mild depression to put one in a writing mood. This is kind of a letter to JJ and Beth, but I’m writing it here, so I guess it’s really for the world. I don’t know.
I wasn’t really going to write all this in second person, I guess it just happened this way.
Guys, I know you’re not moving too far away, and as soon as I have my own transportation I’ll probably come bother you all the time, but this really is the end of an era. I’m really looking forward to having Jason and Kristin here, they seem like wonderful people, but it’ll be a long time before it feels normal again. I don’t think you fully understand, even now, how much you’ve impacted the lives of your students, especially the ones who maybe you didn’t have as much association with as others.
I really wish I could have gotten to know you better, that you could have known me better, but then that’s what I always feel when the opportunities are already – unintentionally – missed. I think that, without really noticing it, I may have taken you for granted just a little. So many things I didn’t say because I didn’t know just how, because most things I say end up wrong somehow. I seriously don’t know how people can tell me I’m good with words when I can’t even hold a conversation without feeling awkward, and I feel incredibly selfish for not being able to get past my own problems and form meaningful relationships with people. But there it is.
JJ, I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me and my brothers for you to give us rides so many times. It might seem like a small thing to some people and maybe even to you, but I know you never wished – like my parents sometimes did – that we’d just find a church that was closer to us. I have major trust issues, so knowing there was somebody I could trust, even for something as mundane as a ride, was huge for me.
Thank you both so much for everything you’ve taught me, both in church and in the way you live your lives. I don’t have much experience being there for people or having people be there for me, but I know you would have been there if I ever needed you. Thank you for being a steady influence even when you weren’t actually around.
I’m crying now, of course. *rolls eyes* I hate it so much when my face leaks.
I wish you the best of luck in your new ministry. Irish luck, because you have a leprechaun hat. I know you’ll bless them just like you’ve blessed us. I hope you and your family experience the very best God has for you, and I admire you so much for having the courage to follow His leading in your life. JJ, even if Jason ends up being a better youth pastor than you ever were, you’ll always be my friend and a positive role model in my mind.
I’m just kidding. You’re the best youth pastor in the world, everyone knows that. 😛
Well, I’ve about had my say. I don’t really edit these posts at all, so I’m sure it’s all horribly garbled, but it is what it is. So much love to all of you – I’ll see you on Wednesday. We still want to write you a song parody. Happy birthday, JJ!!! ^_^
Ok, I’m done. Carry on.
Time, and those pathetic beings which inhabit it.
The last time I posted was in February? Wow, I didn’t think it’d been quite that long…guess that shows how good I am with time.
Where to start? Well, last week Pastor Tom asked if I’d been doing any blogging lately, to which I was forced to answer in the negative. The longer I go without doing something, the harder it is to start doing it again…especially with something like this, where my posting again just brings attention to all those months I didn’t post, all those goals I’m so far behind on. I have so much to say here, but most of the time the inspiration to say it fades within minutes or hours and I’m left dry again. That’s really how I’ve been viewing this whole blogging episode over the past few weeks, as somewhat of an embarassment to me and a testament to my failure in so many areas.
But over the past week or two, I slowly realized that the problem with the way I was thinking is that – you guessed it -it’s all about me. Let’s face it, if the things I do are all about my own glory, I might as well put a bullet in my head right now, ’cause it’s not going much of anywhere.
This isn’t about me and how absolutely great I am at blogging and how punctually I post. It’s about God, and how I can give Him glory through my actions. It’s not about my shame because I so quickly fall down, but His strength that can pick me up again, no matter how much my flesh might resist. So I’ll keep writing, not for the people that might read these words, not for my own fame, but for Him and Him alone.
And seriously, it’s not like I have to write a small novel every time (yes, I know I could stand to edit down my work some, lol.) I’ve seen people (no names here) write just a sentence or a little paragraph for their entire post. So if I’ve got nothing to write about, I’ll just write about nothing. Watch out, world.
One more thing here; I’m writing this on my new iPod Touch, and once again I’d just like to thank Eric for the wonderful gift. I don’t know if you want your name mentioned here for all to see, but too bad. 😛 Much love and no evil.
There’s more to come. That means minutes, not months.
thanksgiving every day
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It falls directly in the middle of my favorite season, autumn, and the atmospheres around that time of year are beautiful. There’s a wintry feeling creeping into the air, every breath is a joy. All around people are getting ready for Christmas, and we get to enjoy all the benefits of Christmas spirit without the material hassles that come into celebrating the actual day. And Thanksgiving gives the perfect opportunity to enjoy the season with great food, fun and fellowship. Not to mention the days of leftover pies, snacks and of course the turkey that stretches the boundaries of resourcefulness in the nicest way. I remember last week JJ mentioned people that cook extra turkeys just to have leftovers, and that’s so totally us.
I will very readily admit now that if Thanksgiving came along, say, this week, it would probably recieve a poor reception. We’ve been struggling financially and if not for the grace of God we’d be suffering a lot worse. But good things come out of adversity.
I’ve never really considered myself a person that takes things for granted…at least not unintentionally. I think some things we end up taking for granted no matter what, but it’s always good to be able to realize the truth of that. One of my favorite quotes in my old quote collection is a Zen saying that reads something like, “If you have a glass, picture it already broken.” So I’m not gonna talk about learning not to take things for granted. But I think it’s actually a slightly different issue learning to be truly thankful for what we have.
I’ve never really been bad about that either. Like most kids I’ve gone through depressive bouts, but I never would have seriously considered suicide just because it would be unbearable to intentionally deprive myself of knowing what the next day might bring. As far back as I can remember my prayer has been of thanks to God for simply allowing me, us, to live on this earth and experience everything he’s created.
But over the past few months almost every day’s just been filled with wonder for what God has given us. I thank God for the internet and its wealth of free information just there for the taking. For libraries that allow us to read to our heart’s content with nothing but time and a deadline to pay. For friends and even for strangers that have gone out of their way in these times to give us food and clothing – I swear, almost every time I open the refrigerator a smile comes to my face for the fact that we actually have something to eat. That’s something a lot of people take for granted, but it’s God that gives us life and God that sustains it and that’s something truly amazing. I thank God for creativity, for the way it feels to sink into a soft bed at night, for toilets that actually flush.
I think for a long time I felt like I wasn’t sure how to trust God, like it’s difficult to figure out exactly what that means. I mean, you keep hearing that it’s important to not worry about things, not try to do things on your own power. But what exactly does that imply? I still don’t have it all figured out. One of the hardest things about Christianity for me is hearing these abstract concepts and not having the slightest idea how to apply them to my life – either the information’s sadly lacking or my brain just doesn’t process correctly, as I’ve long suspected.
But be that as it may, the fact is that God has come through for us in so many little ways. There can be no doubt that without his help we’d have so much less than we do. All of us could stand a little humbling every now and then. So maybe this is what it means to trust God. There are always so many reservations; we want to do it by ourselves until it’s absolutely necessary to get some divine help, and we pray. But in our times of need God finally has that opportunity to show us what he truly is.
He’s in control…and he holds all our lives in his hands.
Sorry for the rant. 😛
…save me from myself
You know what? It can be harder than it seems to post in a blog every week, especially when you’re tired. And especially when you write parts of posts and then the drafts don’t save properly and you have to start all over again. Okay, so that only happened once, but you get the picture.
There are a lot of things to talk about, obviously, and they should have been spread out. I think in the future I’ll try to write down things I’d like to post about in one of my notebooks, or maybe just make more posts through the week. That way I won’t be forgetting all my subjects any more. Ah, for that little bit of discipline.
Anyway, last night at youth group Taylor was asking about my blog – more like demanding, actually – and I realized that people actually do read this and if I’m going to keep from being a pathetic loser I’d better stick to my word and post. So thanks, Taylor. 😛
I guess first I’ll talk about Winter Retreat, since it was the leftover lethargy from that which messed up my flow in the first place. Doom you, Winter Retreat. Doom you.
This year was my very first winter retreat (yay ^_^) and it was quite an interesting experience. The bathrooms definitely frightened my brothers, though I’m told the facilities on previous winter retreats were much worse. Considering that the Word of Life is supposed to be the nicest place we’ve ever gone, and considering I ended up with Winter Retreat shirts from previous retreats anyway, perhaps I should be grateful this was my first.
When we divided into teams, I was on the brown team. To anybody who knows me, the implications should be obvious, but the thought of brownies did not cross my mind once. My mind was a brownie-free zone. Until somebody else (PJ rocks, lol) came up with the name Brownie Hunters. I felt right at home. For anybody who saw the flag, it was supposed to have a brownie in the middle of the scope, but someone put the heart there and that’s why the flag didn’t win. I love you anyway, somebody. 😛
Fun memories. Two-inch bruises from paintball. Yes, I’m a total wimp. Masochistic? Not at all. And I’m totally doing it again next year.
Amber flailing through some body spray and how Melissa just can’t let it go. Love you guys.
Eating way too much at the buffet-thingy. I actually don’t like strawberry shortcake that much, but I’ll eat it any day in honor of L.
Finding out a member of the band was a Coheed and Cambria fan. XD
All in all, the winter retreat was a fun bonding experience. I must admit that I still liked camp better, though. But if I’m still in Florida, there’s no possible way I’m not going to WR next year. And I’m getting on the A-Team after I graduate, too. Yup, I said it.
I’m going to post again later, I promise this time.
Edit: Oh, forgot to mention: the title of this post, while very relevant to me and my procrastination, is actually the name of Brian Head Welch(ex-Korn)’s new solo album. If you don’t know this guy’s story, he became a Christian and left Korn to make his own music. Though I was keeping tabs on him for a while(I’d only heard a couple Korn songs but I liked them and I was intrigued), I forgot about it the last few months and so didn’t actually listen to the album until a couple days ago. I really enjoyed it. Flawed, of course, and especially the lyrics need some refining. But it’s very in-your-face real, and there’s some beautiful music on there. Welch’s vocals even reminded me of Devon Graves(Dead Soul Tribe) in a couple places. If you’re into slightly heavier music, definitely check it out.
I’m out for real this time, no evil.
Invisible Trucks
‘Ello. Again I don’t really have a lot to say. Maybe next week I’ll do some music reviews or something. But I guess one of the problems I have is writing something that more than one or two people would actually get. So, Feathersound crew, this one’s for you. Again. 😛
First I’ll mention the main event of last week: Winter Jam! It was fairly awesome. We met at church, went out to lunch and headed to the USF sundome to wait in the sun for a couple hours. That’s why it’s called the sun dome. Daniel, who hasn’t really been to many events as of yet, was shocked at the waiting time. I was just a bit disappointed about getting sun on my head. It’s all good. Anyway, after we were let in, our group found a couple rows of empty seats (a bit higher than hoped) and enjoyed sitting. We didn’t wait long before the bands started to play. I’ll just say, though of course it was quite enjoyable, I didn’t really find much for deeper interest in most of the bands that played. Of course, like most of the audience, I was pretty much just there for tobyMac – one of a very few hip-hop style artists I love – and he didn’t disappoint. All in all it was a great, great night. It inspired in me a craving for some metal, but really great.
And then the next morning in sunday school JJ brought up a video he’d posted in his blog. You should really go watch it, because I’m not in the mood to give a synopsis. But the part that stood out, of course, was the analogy of a truck. Christians were likened to a person who, seeing a truck headed straight for another human being who is unable or unwilling to see it, cannot in good conscience just let the truck crush the other man. Obviously there was more to it than that, but that’s the gist of what I’m working with. Anyway, of course I found the video very convicting and interesting. But while thinking about the truck analogy I came to a very minor epiphany regarding Christian community. JJ, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
So let’s say hypothetically I’m just a normal person who one day is given the gift of special truck-seeing abilities. I suddenly, shockingly realize that all this time there was a truck accident in my own future and without my Truck Saviour I’d have been a goner. I didn’t do anything to deserve this gift. It was given to me freely, and I’m so thankful that the first thing I wanna do is go out and make sure everybody else can have it too. So I go outside and the first person I see, I start to talk to.
Then I see a truck headed straight for the person. In horror I realize that in just a few minutes the living soul before me with be crushed in a really gory way. I try every way I possibly can to get them to see this truck before it’s too late. But they think I’m a madwoman. They don’t want to have anything to do with me, because quite obviously if they can’t see the truck it doesn’t exist. So they turn around and I watch as the truck catches up to them and mangles their body beneath its wheels.
Okay, so that was kind of an overdramatic story, but you get the point.
Every day I go out and see people with trucks headed for them. For the first few days I try with all my heart and soul to save them from impending doom, but after months, then years pass and I’ve seen so much truck-related death it’s just not funny, I start to get desensitized and then complacent. Even if I know it’s entirely possible to save these people – or I would never have been given the truck sight in the first place – I start to feel like the rejection, the pain isn’t worth it. I don’t want them to die, but it’s a faint feeling now at the back of my conscience, and when all around me I see people die that I could possibly have talked to, I just look the other direction at the moment of impact.
Because they’re damned anyway, and somewhere in the back of my subconscious I’ve convinced myself it’s not really my responsibility. The conviction to help people comes up occasionally, but for the most part I’ve reduced it to a twinge. And on the surface I laugh with these people and feel love for them while knowing that they’re going to die. It’s a thankless job I’ve been given by the Truck Saviour, and sometimes it’s not worth the scars.
I think that if Christians are completely honest with themselves, most of us have felt that way to some degree. Or maybe it’s just me.
And THAT is why Christian community is so important. Because any of us on our own would eventually lose hope, no matter how deeply we believed. Our relationship with each other and with God – a three-way affair which forms a murky, twisted, imperfect mirror of the Trinity – gives us something to hold on to when the world seems thankless and cruel. It’s been said that if there is only one sane man in the entire world, he must be the one that’s insane (or something to that effect.) I know I’m not insane because you can see the trucks too. And together we form something bigger than any one of us, something that draws people in, gives them something to see and understand with their eyes and their hearts instead of just hearing words that don’t make sense to their personal worldview. That’s what we should strive for.
I was going to say a few more things about my goals, but I’m gonna stop here. I’ve ranted for long enough. Hopefully what I’ve said makes sense to somebody.
To anybody who was waiting for me to fail and not post today: HA!!! BWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
P. S. Next weekend is Winter Retreat! Hopefully that’ll give me some great material for next Monday, huh? I’ve never been before and I’m pretty excited, though how it can top mountains I’m not sure. 😛
A Week
It’s been a week since my last post, and I’ve spent this morning trying to think of something to write here. I finally came to the conclusion that in fact I do not have too few things to write about – I have too many, which can seem like the same thing. So today I’ll write about things I have and things I don’t have, with sprinklings of things I like and things I don’t.
Let’s begin.
For starters, I have a cold. Which amounts to having a MAJOR FAIL. All my resolutions were going swimmingly until I ended up with a sore throat on Wednesday morning, and since then I’ve gotten behind on my Bible reading, written very little, not played guitar, et cetera. My immune system fails at life, and I’ll probably be coughing for another week at least. But I was able to skip PE this morning and with it myriad opportunities for small people to ask me why I have a paintbrush in my hair. That has to count for something.
I don’t have: money. Common knowledge, I guess. But it would be so very nice to be able to take some classes at CHoSEN this semester, and it looks like we’re not going to be able to. It almost seems cruel for us to have gone for just one semester and taken one class and then just leave it in the past like everything else.
I do have a new deviantART account. I’ve posted a few random things on it, but I’ll probably just put new stuff on when it gets done instead of going through old portfolios for a lot more material. Really glad to have finally gotten it over with, though, since I’ve wanted to get an account for a while but never had a scanner hooked up to my compy. Now I do. Yay!
I don’t have…a cheeseburger. Sadly, this one doesn’t really need further elaboration.
To all the people I may disturb by coughing in the future: My apologies. Please pray for my immune system to get its bloody act together. Don’t look at Timothy’s mustache too closely.
Much love and no evil. I’m gonna go eat something.
New Year’s goals
Well, I’ve finally decided to commit to this blog thing. I almost started writing a few times, but never went through with it, just because it’d be so easy to slack off like with everything else and get stuck apologizing to people I’m not sure really care. But this morning at church Pastor Tom was talking about New Year’s goals and I realized it was time to get off my sorry butt and make myself accountable for all the ways I want to make this year better. This blog will, for the most part, be parent-friendly. However, if I’m lucky, my friends from many different areas of my life will end up reading these posts. To all of them, please understand you may be exposed on occasion to a different version of me than the one you’re used to seeing in your own specialized area of my personality. Don’t express shock.
Back to the topic at hand.
Pastor Tom mentioned six areas we all need to grow in. This morning was one of the rare times I regretted not having dragged along something to take notes in, but I remembered the basics of what was said. The six areas were these: Spiritual, Physical, Relational, Intellectual, Emotional and Financial. I think.
I decided to make at least one resolution in each of these areas, some of them harder for me than others. Some of these goals might seem more attainable than others, but I’ll have something to work towards. And each of them have to do with at least one of those areas, though they might seem random.
- Read through the entire Bible systematically. Spiritual, obviously. This seems like a pretty common, normal resolution. However, it was my only New Year’s resolution last year and I didn’t even try. This year I have a plan (yup, the one from church) and I’m sticking with it.
- Improve my physical condition. To be more specific, I want to be able to do multiple reps of pushups and pullups, run at least a mile, and do a full split. All of these are easily attainable with regular practice.
- Start training in some martial art. Another physical goal. I don’t necessarily mean only the standard Asian martial arts popularly associated with those words, though I want to learn those as well. But in the most literal sense ‘martial arts’ means ‘arts of war’. Knife throwing, shooting, archery, fencing, etc. are all perfectly acceptable.
- Meet with friends outside of organized activities. Sounds pathetic, right? But it’s true, I almost literally never see any of my friends – not counting online friends who I technically never see anyway – outside of organized activities like church meetings, schoolish meetings, the occasional party. I’ve never been entirely willing to open myself up to all the potential stress of attempting to actually set up appointments and just ‘hang out’ with friends. I’m going to be an adult this year, I’m too old to hide behind the socially awkward artist’s personality that lets me get away with feeling sorry for myself all the time and living in the extremes of a comfort zone, and I will do things with friends this year if it kills me. Whether I feel like we ‘have anything in common’ or not, whether I feel like they ‘don’t understand me’ or not. The time for emo is over.
- Be able to converse in passable German. The first of a group of intellectual goals. Those are the easiest to think of, just all the things I’ve been trying to teach myself and never made myself stick with it long enough to get good. So yes, I want to be able to have a semi-meaningful discussion with a German-speaking person. Because that’s how I roll.
- Finish three works of long fiction. Notice I didn’t say books – I’ve left this open for fanfiction as well, and maybe other unspecified forms of writing. But a year is more than enough time to have at least three completed works, at least one and maybe two of which will be a novel ready for publication.
- Improve my guitar playing skills. I’ve been seriously practicing guitar, on and off, since I was maybe thirteen or fourteen. I could be really good at it by now if I hadn’t been so flaky about practicing regularly, and that’s one of the things I regret about the past few years. I love playing music too much to quit it altogether and so I decided it’s really going to stick this year. It’s all or nothing, I’m sick of half-assed attempts. I will finish that last instructional DVD, I will learn whole songs, and I will perform in front of people. I’ll know how to play songs I love and I will finally feel good about this area in my life for more than a few days at a time.
- Be prepared to pass the SAT. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to take the actual test this year, or next year, or what. Like I’ve told pretty much everybody, I could pass the GED easy at any time. The SAT is harder, though, and I don’t think I’d pass the math part. I hate math. So this year as soon as possible I’d like to study up and feel confident about my test-passing abilities.
- Keep a blog and post at least once a week. See the beginning of this post for details. Believe it or not, this is an emotional goal. Cheating? Maybe. But I have a hard time with the emotion parts of my brain, they don’t seem to work quite right. The equilibrium is all out of whack. I honestly can’t think of anything I’d consider an emotional goal and it’s making me angry trying, and without those notes I wished for earlier I have no idea what I’m supposed to put here. So keeping a blog and expressing my thoughts in a reader-friendly, comprehensible way is an emotional goal for me.
- Add a steady stream of income. And the financial goal, the one that was hardest of all. It ended up very vague, as you can see, which is a recipe for disaster. In simplest terms it means ‘get a job’, but since that in itself is just full of problems I’ll just say that whatever I can do to make sure I add a significant and somewhat reliable source of money to my family counts. Again, it’s time to take action rather than doing a little something here and there.
There were a hundred things I could have added to this list, things like portrait drawing, getting a haircut, strengthening my immune system, actually reading the rules to football, typing faster, and so many more. But I’ve arbitrarily made a list and I’m happy with it, so that’s what it’ll be. And I believe that by making my life more goal-oriented, I’ll open the way to do all that other stuff I needed to get done as well.
This is my blog. This is where I’ll be accountable for what I’ve said here and this is where you’ll read more rants than you ever thought necessary. At least once a week, in fact.
I’ll be back.
Diary of a Brownie Slayer 