blehhh

someone save me…

 i’m working a ton just to keep up with the amount of work i’ve been getting in my classes and i’m struggling to keep up.  as much as people always say that it’s not true, i truly think i am not smart in the way school wants me to be smart and that sometimes no matter how much i work towards school, i can’t seem to accomplish what i set out to accomplish.

i guess some people are just wired in certain ways for school and i, for one, am definitely not wired to do these things such as math, science, or write well developed essays that convey a good argument of any sort.

lately on my mind, i’ve really been thinking about what would happen right now if i dropped out of college and started working.  i’ve always said that i don’t think i would mind working now and not going to school, and i still believe that.  the reasons i don’t like school so much is because it costs a ton, it’s four years of studying, you have to do work outside of school as well as go to school (studying and doing homework), i hate being a student, and i guess all the other reasons you could think of for yourself.  but the only reasons i know that i should stay in school is because i know that this short period of suffering will pass, it will benefit me in the future, and i know that God has put me here for a reason and that reason isn’t to give up.  don’t know how i got into uw, but i did, and i guess i have to make the best of it

all this suffering from studying, keeping up with homework, the lessons, dealing with professors, un-helpful TA’s, extremely opinionated teachers, etc, it’s all getting to my head.  i have not been this stressed out in a very very long time.  i know i’m not cut out for school.  the real me is more… philosophical… artistic… deep…  which doesn’t seem to fit very well with math and science at all.  it’s sad the system places so much emphasis on those two things.

if i can just push through this one quarter… i can make it through the rest… stinkin school… wish i could just stop going or whatever…. it’s like being a freshman all over again……

Those of you who were at AMPLIFY: LIVE. LOVE. LOUD retreat know that I did a energetic and “powerful” speech sort of thing on the last day to wrap up the Loud sermon and retreat in general.  As a leader, I prepared so much to make this as best as it could be given the amount of time that I had.  I constantly rewrote and re-edited my speech over and over again in efforts to best portray LOUD so that students would be affected in some way.

I gotta say, doing something like this was a big step for me.  I’m constantly getting teased about the lack of emotion that I portray, especially in my speech.  It’s been an on-going joke among some of the older people that I know, that when they see me, they would greet me in a monotone voice and I do it back.  I mean, it’s funny and stuff and I can’t really change it about myself.  How would it be if I talked with an emotional inflection in my voice?  Totally not me I think.  But even up to the last day of retreat, I was still working on my emotional and passionate speaking skills so that the message would be heard.  I worked hard for this.

As I worked on my speech each day, rewriting things and trying to memorize my lines, I kept getting more and more nervous.  Nervous about how the speech was going to flow, how the message was going to be received, if the students were going to respond at all, and my overall performance.  Over the course of the four days at retreat, my nervousness just kept getting built up and started bulging. 

On the last day of retreat, I woke up and as I ran to the cafeteria, I felt so rushed since I hadn’t prepared my speech very well at all.  I looked at my notes and practiced so much and didn’t even participate in conversation during breakfast.  I wanted to get all that practice in before sermon so that I could listen to the last sermon of retreat which was talking about Loud.  Every single night, I was so eager to listen to sermon by Pastor Derek, I paid full attention and took a full page of notes every night.  On the that day, I really really wanted to listen to the last sermon, but I had been so nervous that whole morning and didn’t have any practice that I had to give up listening to the sermon and went outside to practice my speech.

Outside, it was cold and I stood near the bathrooms.  People kept walking out to go to the bathroom and made me self concious so I had to walk to the otherside of the building to practice so I wouldn’t be distracted.  The more I tried memorizing it, the more I realized that I was probably going to forget a line or two on stage.  As I went back in after realizing that after so much practice, I had most of the first half memorized and wasn’t going to remember the second part.  I searched and luckily found a pink pen on the table and wrote notes on the inside of left wrist so that when I held the mic, I would be able to discreetly look at my notes and remember my speech.  I finally decided to just sit and try to listen to the sermon the best I could.  But I could not.

I was getting extremely nervous; my palms were getting clammy and my heart was pounding.  I started to get up and paced around but it seemed distracting to some people so I went behind the divider and started jumping around trying to calm myself down.  In between, I heard bits and pieces of Pastor Derek’s sermon talking about Loud.  And a line from his powerpoint just totally hit me: Be confident in your weaknesses.  And he was saying that God will give you the strength and power to carry on.  And I thought to myself, wow… this is exactly what I’m going to be talking about.  Even my speech is about having confidence in something that I’m not confident in, because God will give you strength.  In fact, one of my lines was, “We struggle to be loud about our faith because we lack confidence in God.  We refuse to believe in the unfailing power and incredible strength of our everlasting Father.”

When I realized this and started praying and laughing at God’s humor, all that pressure and nervousness was lifted.  I went up there much more calm that I had been that whole morning and waited patiently and cool as a cucumber for my time to go up. 

And the moment finally came.  I started it off.  Everything was going good.  Sound effects came in.  Okay.  Good.  Keep going.  The sound effects and band just stopped.  Oh shoot.  Keep going.  I forgot my line.  “This is our world.”  Think.  Crap.  Pace.  “This is our world.”  Think.  Oh yeah.  “We struggle to be loud about our faith because we lack confidence in our God…”  Tell the band to start playing again.  “Can you be loud.”  A response.  Good.  Phew.  Glad that’s over.  I completely butchered it…

But as I stepped off stage, the first person I saw was Pastor Derek who was more than pleased by my performance and my message.  And the rest of the leaders in the back came and shook my hand and congratulated me on my performance.  In the end I found out, when the sounds stopped, it fit perfectly into my speech.  When I forgot my lines, it made things more dramatic.  When I needed a crowd reaction, the students were really into it.  Nobody could tell that I had forgotten my lines and that I needed to look at my wrist to remember the second half of the speech.  And I got an amazing amount of compliments throughout the rest of the day from leaders and students and I am still getting them from students as I meet more of them and talk with them. 

And what can I say?  Thanks to all the leaders who helped spark the crowd reaction.  Thanks to Pastor James who supported me so much in doing this.  Thanks to everybody who complimented me and just made my head bigger.  And seriously, thank you God for your perfect timing, excellent workings, unfailing power and incredible strength, for making the speech as perfect as You wanted it, and allowing me to be your tool. 

Amen

Just kidding, I didn’t watch it, but everybody says it’s good.  No plans to go watch it though.  Anyway, you’ll see why this entry is titled this.

So I was taking a showering in the nude and my mind was just wandering.  I’m not exactly sure what led to me thinking about ghosts and weird supernatural occurences but that’s where my mind went.  I remember watching shows on tv a lot where they talk about these occurences cuz the Discovery Channel always has them.  I was thinking to myself, “Well, they gotta be real cuz so many people have seen them…  Nahh, it’s probably just God messing around with people and having fun… haha”

And then…

the light in the bathroom started to flicker…

and then it started to kinda pulse between dim and bright…

then on and off

and then… darkness

I was really creeped out… lol  I called my mom to come in and she called my bro to screw in the other light bulbs and none of the lights would turn back on…  It was kinda starting to get in my head, and then I had a revelation, “dude, it’s God messing with me to just let me know that He’s there” and I kinda laughed to myself and then the light came back on because apparently my brother had turned off the light before he tried to screw in the lightbulbs.

Hah…  God, you’re funny

Let me set up the story a little bit by giving some background information.  This girl skipped a grade but is in the same grade as me.  She was one of those awkward/annoying types where they don’t really intentionally be annoying, but their presence is just annoying and stuff after a while.  I guess it’s somewhat hard to explain, but yeah, she was like that, trying to make small talk and being friendly.  She was also that one girl who pretty much liked all the boys at one point.  I mean, I don’t mean to be mean… but I guess I don’t have much respect for her…

So the story goes, as I was getting on the bus, I saw her next to me.  I haven’t talked to her since maybe like sophomore year or before.  I thought it would be rude to not at least acknowledge her presence since she was pretty much right next to me.  I had seen her around and stuff, but never said anything (cuz I’m a hermit like that sometimes).  So I waved, somewhat hoping that nothing else would spark from it.  But unfortunately, she quickly pulled out her headphones and started talking to me. 

“Oh, hi!  I didn’t know you go here… well, I mean… I’ve seen you around and stuff…”
“yep”
“Are you dorming?” (and then she mentioned something about “nevermind, we’re getting on a bus back to Mariner”)
“nope”
“Oh, why not??”
“too expensive”
“That’s true”

and then I found a seat on the bus in the back.

So the day right after, I’m at the park and ride in the morning and I get on the bus.  I get on the bus and find a seat in the second half of the bus, right after the swiveling part of the bus, so I can have more leg room.  I’m sitting by myself so far.  And then I see the same girl walk in and sit in one of the sideways seats.  She looks over and sees me, “Oh hi!”  and I think to myself… “Oh crap…”

She came over and sat next to me and tried to make small talk.  But I wasn’t feeling very good because I was still a bit sick.  So I had a headache, and lately, my left contact keeps bugging my eye really badly.  I can’t even remember what she said to me but it wasn’t much, because I took out my Zune and headphones, put them on, closed my eyes, and listened to for most of the bus ride.

See, now here I am, reflecting back on this situation.  Where do I stand as a person, a human being?  Can you call me nice?  Rude?  Now, where do I stand as a Christian…?  Obviously, I didn’t really put in much effort to be friendly to someone that I sort of know.  But at the same time, I wasn’t exactly rude; I always get on the bus, looking forward to listening to my music… or was I?

Note that I said I listened for most of the ride…  As soon as we got off the freeway, which is still about a 5-10 minute ride to campus, I took out my earphones because I did feel like I was being rude to her in a way.  Only thing though, she didn’t say a word… and I didn’t either.  I’ve always tried to be more talkative in certain situations, and I found that making small remarks and little comments every once in a while will encourage conversation.  But I’ve also found that the easiest way for you to not get someone to talk to you is to not talk to them…  And again, now I question where I stand as a human being.

Is it so wrong for me to be human sometimes?  I guess as a Christian, we strive to be Godly, although we’re human.  But is it bad to embrace our human side at times?  If I want to be left alone, can I be left alone?  I still defintely think that I’m an introvert and prefer to be by myself sometimes but where do I draw the line?  I mean, obviously I kinda ignored and was rude to this girl, but is it okay if I want some alone time with my Zune?  Not really sure… either way it looks as if the answer will be no…

i turned and looked at the blue sky and saw a lonely red balloon drifting in the sky

forging onward as if it had a place to go… higher and higher

and then it vanished behind the trees

I don’t get why they must post other people’s conversations on other people’s main pages.  But anyways, why I’m writing this is because someone wrote me something that wasn’t anything too significant; just kinda like a “how are you doing?” type of thing.  Out of nowhere, some dude that like hated my guts before “liked” the comment my friend wrote to me.

I wouldn’t be surprised if his hatred towards me has dissapaited but seriously… what the heck? 

I’m beginning to really dislike people getting into my personal life these days…

Every once in a while, I see another purple Ford Escort on the road and there’s always one at the mall.  The other one is actually an Escort LX, which is a later version of my car.  Can you guess which car is mine?