So.. Who is Zay Zay really? (Why are threads being locked?)

[bigbruise]

As you've probably noticed, this site looks exactly the same. Of course, if you're one of those hoighty-toighty RSS feeders, you can't tell, but rest assured, if you visited the site yesterday and then again today, you'd not notice a difference. That took a lot of work, let me tell you. I was thinking about adding digg, and if digg is successful, possibly ads to my blog. See if I can't make a little money off this wailing wall of words. But first things first: how hard is it to add digg to each post? Turns out it's five lines of code, but, for lack of motivation, I hadn't changed my layout to use the new Blogger API, and digg, at least the code I found, requires use of one of the new features. So, it took me about four hours, but I finally got everything back to the way it was from one of the other sample layouts blogger offers. There is one major difference besides the added digg, and that's that comments are now only displayed on the item pages themselves, which is irritating. Since I hardly ever get comments, to my displeasure, I always liked having them right on the main page. Therefore, I have amounted more evidence that Google is evil.

It appears I've evaded the important topics for two nights, and now, this third night, there's no avoiding them. I've run out of all the other padding. I suppose I could make up an entire boring scenario that has nothing to do with anything and contradicts any number of statements previously written while I wait for good ideas to pool, but then you'd be as frustrated with me as I am with Bleach.

Pandora truncates "Casting Crowns (Holiday)" to "Casting Crow...". My mind extended it to "Casting Crows" and I immediately pictured throwing birds like paper airplanes. And then I saw "Casting Crow" and imagined a sorcerous raven complete with robe and pointy hat.

Oooh! I've thought of two. Take that, actual content! First, my thermostats are all messed up. It's either like 65 degrees or 80 degrees with nothing in the middle. It's rather frustrating. I don't mind the heat, though it keeps guests away and I have to water my cats more often, but I do mind the doubled electricity bill.

Second, during the Microsoft GIVE campaign this year, we were trying to come up with a theme for our group's code names. A lot of people had ideas (I was not among them), and most of them sucked. So, the last day of the campaign, October 30th, we had a contest, and whichever faction donated the most money that day got to choose the theme for future code names. It quickly became a bidding war, and in the end, our small group donated just under $15k, and Microsoft matched all of that. All in a day's work when there are generous people competing over something relatively small. I am proud to be a Microsoft employee, and even more so to be on the SQL Azure team.

As I said in part one of this chain of posts setting the record, the gold standard, if you will, of blogged days in a row, Heaven has been pushed down on the stack of books I'm reading. The top of the stack is a book called Birthright by David Needham. One Sunday after the church service, I went up and talked to the pastor again. He gave me his email address and apologized for not responding to my facebook message. Liked I'd suspected, it just got misplaced somehow. So, I re-emailed him that one question, and three others. He answered the first one by recommending that I read Birthright.

It's amazing how well the prologue of that book fits my experience. Basically he'd lived his spiritual life academically, but didn't really have the joy that seems so abundant in other Christians. So one day in college, he skipped all of his classes, and went out into the wilderness to pray all day. And nothing happened. I've not done that exact same thing, but I can easily imagine a similar situation. I recognize his frustration, and so I got my hopes up.

Chapters one and two were alright, if a little depressing. They covered what it means to be human (versus being an animal) and the nature of the Fall. When I read, I take each bit of information and reevaluate it against what I already know, think, or have learned. With information on a new topic, or fiction, when the world is relatively simple and new, reading is a lot quicker (though still tedious). When it comes to reading about Christianity, it's very slow going, because there's a lot to process. And on top of that, it might pique some dark spot in my knowledge, and cause me to stop and run down a rabbit trail, usually resulting in a question, and ten minutes later, having to reread the paragraph that caused the interruption.

Processing and reevaluating also means, "suppose this is true; now what are its implications?" So then those implications also need to processed and reevaluated. I'm a fan of the depth first traversal, though I frequently experience stack overflow. I just don't have enough heap memory for a breadth first traversal. Ok, that's enough computer science for now. Anyway, I suggest this method of reading when it comes to important topics, and do not when it comes to finishing reading a book before the quiz tomorrow in CP English, because you'll never finish in time.

A bunch of things in chapters one and two didn't feel quite right. They didn't fit into my already-dug "trenches," as the book describes it. For reading it, I've found I had to think of it as completely hypothetical, then evaluate it as a whole when I'm done, to replace whatever trenches I already have if it turns out his thoughts are more right than what I already have, else I'm going to end up chiseling the walls with a butter knife, and that's just not structurally sound.

Chapter three was pivotal. He reiterated what he'd said in the prologue, again bolstering my hope for some crucial secret I'd never been taught, nor figured out on my own.

Actually, the first portion of chapter three was really interesting. He said something that makes complete sense to me (no chiseling required) that I'd never thought of before. He describes salvation as a "screen" (and uses quotes every single time he mentions it as if we'd forgotten in the last two sentences what he was talking about), and when we accept Jesus' gift, death, and forgiveness, God no longer sees us, but sees a screen, displaying Jesus. God sees Jesus' righteousness rather than our sinful nature. Essentially, we're not seen at all. This leads me to ask a question. Didn't Jesus take all of our sin? Doesn't that make him sinful and us holy in the eyes of God? So wouldn't that make that screen of his a sinful one? I think the answer is no, because Jesus was God and so when he descended to hell, he was able to atone for the sins there, and now is holy again. As for seeing us as holy, I think that's what he means by the screen in the first place. Maybe it's more like a super powerful sin vacuum cleaner that pulls the stains off us as soon as we put them there before God gets a chance to see them. Anyway, this is all a little trivial in comparison to the point he was making, and the point I said makes complete sense to me, that the screen is a completely external process. When we accept Christ into our lives, there is no immediate internal change. We are seen as holy, but are still of the flesh, still fallen.

Then he went onto two internal changes that do happen. The second one becomes the primary focus of the book thereafter (I've not read that far yet), but the first one, while seemingly small, is a bridge to the second. This first internal change is this: that we are no longer enemies of God. God is now a father with open arms, and we love him for that. Alas, this is where my hopes crumbled, because that's not my experience. I love God because he is holy and good, and I love good things. But I've never really felt like he was proud of me, or that he cared at an intimate level. He's like a war general that cares about his troops three levels below him, and wants none of them to die. He makes his orders and brilliant stratagems to that affect, and if given the chance to save those soldiers' lives by dying himself, would do it in a heartbeat. But that's not a personal love. That's not the love of a father, and not what Needham describes.

When he was going over this, like many times before, I tried to imagine God as a man with open arms. An overwhelming image appeared in my mind's eye. It was an irrepressible darkness deserving the fear of the Lord. I don't know what to make of that. Something happened, then, a few minutes after I let the image slip. I tried again, and this time (and every time since) it was a blurry image of a figure with open arms, with white-blue light surrounding him. But it was entirely foreign, and not of love, at least that I could recognize. Embracing this figure would be like clasping your hands, then shifting the top hand down one finger. I don't know what to make of that either.

Anyway, I'll keep reading, but once again I've gotten my hopes up and then they were dropped and broken.

Now I've arrived at an age-old philosophical debate, and this one has a known right answer if you're a Christian. I'm just not sure I've seen evidence of this right answer. In fact, this answer caused the reformation and split the church off from Catholicism. Is salvation a free gift? I know that it is not earned. There are any number of arguments against that train of thought. What merit could man possibly bring forth to earn salvation? Further, if he could, potentially, what need of salvation would he have? So, the answer is a resounding 'yes,' salvation is absolutely a free gift.

There's an old word play. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. It is "by grace you have been saved through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) There's a bit there: "through faith." That faith has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? Is it still a gift if we're required to supply this faith ourselves? This presents a chemical simile. What if faith is like a catalyst. It's not used up, not exchanged, in the process, but still required for the reaction of salvation to occur? Another thought comes to mind. What is faith? Maybe we do have to supply it, but what if it occurs naturally from simply wanting the gift in the first place? I've heard two definitions of faith. One, that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see," (Hebrews 11:1) and two, that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Those might actually be two ways of saying the same thing. If we take this second definition, then hoping for salvation, and acting on this hope by naming ourselves Christians, produces faith in and of itself. This is what "accepting the gift of salvation" is, so faith isn't irrelevant, but it's not an issue, I don't think.

This topic brushes on the 'how' of being saved. There's a lot of theological debate on this one too. Romans 10:9-10 puts it simply.

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Justified was a word that Needham talked a lot about in the first half of chapter 3, what spawned his screen idea. I suppose it's ironic, then, that the believing in your heart is what produces the external effects, and confessing with your mouth spurs the internal changes.

It just seems like, though, that with salvation, always comes the need to change our lives. My friend David put it this way, "I usually side on the 'salvation is a gift from God, but that gift should be reason enough to be life-changing' side." However, John (the apostle) goes so far to say to cease sinning. It's a do, not a should. (He doesn't mean completely, I don't think, as that's impossible in our fleshy bodies, but perhaps to get out of the mindset of it's okay.) Paul makes a similar point in Romans 6.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

See, now I'm confused. We were given this gift in order that we might die? We're now losing our lives for a "free gift." Even Jesus turned people away for various reasons. What about the man in Luke 9 who is hyped up about miracles, but Jesus knows there's more hardship than glamor? What about the wealthy man in Mark 10, when Jesus tells him to give away all his possessions if he wants to follow him? At this point, I believe we're in a paradox. I'm okay with paradoxes. If we're going to argue that it's a completely free gift, and that this isn't a paradox, then God needs to do all the changing of our lives himself. All of it. In my experience, he doesn't. It probably contradicts free will, which he has promised us. The number of times I've prayed for change in my life above and beyond myself -- a total makeover of my life without letting me get involved. It's never happened. The only option left to me is that this is a paradox. What gets me is that we continue to preach that this is a free gift, and it is, and we preach that we need to quit sinning, change our lives, kill our lives, and we never want to point out that these appear to contradict themselves. The sermon on Sunday, for example, was on "the gospel as gift," in a five-week series titled "the gospel as ...". He spent the whole sermon arguing that it is a free gift, much like I just did but with different verses. And in the last five minutes switched to "now what can you give?" Wait, what?

I was going to write a bit about God's love. I'm not sure that I have much to write, though. Wait, that sounds bad. There was a "sermon" given in Bellingham on God's love. It wasn't a sermon, though. That church does things differently (not wrong), and some weeks they have more of a discussion or forum, rather than a formal sermon. (Other weeks they have service projects rather than meeting at the church at all. It's actually a really cool idea. It's not my thing, but it's a really cool idea. I wouldn't mind doing the service projects, but I get the most out of a good speaker and a good worship session. That and service are what build me up the most, and I see church as the place to go to be built up. Really, I think, glorifying God should be what the rest of the week is about, but perhaps that's a different blog post.) Anyway, the pastor got up and said that he could talk for thirteen hours on the topic of God's love, and then he sat down and had everyone else talk. I've just never heard a satisfying sermon on God's love. I'm not certain I've heard any sermons on the topic specifically. It's a rather large topic. I'm not sure what you'd talk about specifically, aside from John 3:16. I find it frustrating. I don't even know what I want in order to be satisfied. Like pornography, I know it when I see it. I say I want something concrete, but what's more concrete than God sending his only Son to die in our place? I say I want something I can directly apply to my life as an action, but any time someone has taken me up on that challenge, I'm not satisfied with their answers (or they give my favorite answer: just give it to Jesus). One time I was told to journal....

I was talking to Courtney last night about Birthright and about my lack of joy. Defining joy has always been a challenge too. It's obviously different from happiness. We're expected to have lasting joy. Happiness is by nature fleeting and circumstantial. I guess that means that joy is not circumstantial, and so must then be based on something permanent, maybe knowledge? I would say faith or hope, but I find both of those fleeting -- hope more than faith. After all, hope crashes and burns due to circumstances, like getting to page 61 in a book. Do joy and disappointment, then, not contradict each other? I go round and round in circles. I get frustrated trying to define joy, trying to decide whether I have it or not. And then I remember it's moot. Whether or not I'm missing joy, I know I am missing something. I feel like Anakin feeling he's being denied some knowledge of the force. So I feel really whiny, and a little bit paranoid. But if this is it, I'm not satisfied, and I refuse to believe that an infinite God is not satisfying.

One thing that always comes to mind is the excitement I see in other Christians. I think I touched on this when I was still hanging out with Paul. (I need to call him again, and grab coffee or something.) They're just so happy about what Jesus has done in their lives. Why am I not? Am I merely ungrateful? If I am, can I change? If I can, is that not just forcing my own happiness? Think happy thoughts! I guess I've been excited once or twice, like after Challenge a few years back. Maybe I just notice when Christians are excited, and I don't notice when that excitement fades or falters.

I know for one thing that I don't feel forgiven. I know that I am as take it at your word knowledge. Isn't that rather core? I don't doubt my salvation, and I don't doubt that I'm forgiven, but why do I still feel guilty all the time? Why can't I forgive myself for things? I would think that if I truly realized the enormity of my situation, my grievances and the mercy and grace given instead of justice -- if I took that all into perfect perspective, maybe I'd be touched deeper down. But I'm pretty thick. It takes a lot to shake me. How can I not take something for granted when I already do? I can think about the cross and the sacrifice, but then I just feel guilty again, which is the cause of this issue in the first place, right?

Like I was saying, I was talking to Courtney. She and I had a rather blunt conversation with straight forward questions. I'm still trying to decide whether it was refreshing or awkward, but whatever. She asked me if I see God's love in my life. And I don't, at least not in the moment. I see God's influence in my past, the brilliance of the General's orders after the battle is over. The biggest example of this is my not getting into Harvey Mudd, and being forced to go to Western, where I roomed with Swood and got involved in CCF and the INN, and ultimately landed my dream job at Microsoft. Had I gotten into Harvey Mudd, I wouldn't have been near my family during the divorce, and I would have taken four years instead of three to graduate. I would have been looking for a job right in the midst of the recession.

She gave me a few examples of how she sees God in her life. Part of it seems to be an assuredness that whatever happens, God is in control. That's probably another thing I take for granted. Other things are like her "wonderful family." To be blunt, I don't have a wonderful family. I love my mom and sister dearly, but we are really broken and dysfunctional. Or she's thankful that she gets to go to college. I'm thankful for the experience -- in hindsight -- but it really was expected of me. It was a stressor, even if it was something I wanted to do, and something during which I was relatively carefree. Maybe this is a bad example, but imagine you're a prince. You want to be king, because you'd be a good king, but you are going to be king, and there's nothing you can do about it. Since the age of five, I was going to college. It was hard for me to count that a blessing, in fact, I never really even considered it.

So is this what joy is? Being content with what you have, and the knowledge that you'll be taken care of one way or another, even if not in this life? That raises an interesting question -- why bother feeling that you'll be taken care of in this life, if you don't know that for sure? This is morbid, and I don't know exactly why I just thought of it, but one time I was feeling especially suicidal, and my dad got fed up and told me that if I tried to commit suicide and it wasn't God's will for me to die yet, then I wouldn't. Later I was replaying that conversation in my head, and I really wish I had responded, "So how about we try it out, and if I die, it's what God wanted."

The last thing Courtney suggested was writing down five blessings. Blessings are tricky. At face value, they're things you're glad about, right? So if I roll a Yahtzee, is that a blessing? I don't think so. So then they're probably deeper than that. They're things, though. They're not necessarily material, but they're still temporary. The people Jesus healed still died eventually. How good an idea is it to get attached to a something you'll lose? Are thankfulness and attachment the same thing? God gives, and God takes away. I'm afraid to be thankful of things, I think. Yet, there are things I'm thankful for. Swood is the first that comes to mind, followed quickly by the rest of my close friends. He's probably first because I see him on a regular basis, and he's the least likely to leave.

I run into this issue a lot. I'll be working on something or thinking about something, and I'll think about praying for or about it. Sometimes I don't want to, either because I want to do it under my own esteem, feeling I'm more than capable of doing this mundane task I do all the time, or because it's something I don't really worry about (like a plane crashing or something completely random like my sister getting small pox [just made that one up]). But now I feel like if I don't pray about, and then something goes wrong, it was my fault, or even that if I don't pray about it, something will go wrong, despite a complete lack of evidence for this. Should I then pray about every little thing? The Bible does say to pray without ceasing, but I've always been taught that means to live your life as a prayer. Also, I kind of figure that if God is listening in on my thoughts, and I've now devoted twenty-five paragraphs to God, along with all the thought that went into them while writing, as well as the two months since the last post when I was actually doing all this thinking, is that not prayer? Is thinking about God fundamentally different from thinking to God? I'm not sure I've ever read in the Bible that praying in your head "counts." Every time I've read about someone praying, it was aloud. Unless I'm in a group of people, I never pray aloud. God's omniscient, so this shouldn't be an issue. But at the same time, prayers said aloud are typically more focused and less prone to tangent than thought is. Does that make them more powerful? Have I just reduced prayer to magic, if heartfelt, words?

I believe that is enough pondering for one post. It's late again, and I'm driving home tomorrow morning. I haven't seen Luigi in maybe over a year, and I am looking forward to it.

[Guest]

lol

[bigbruise]

Oh man you guys! I wrote this four thousand word blog post in between this one and the one from last night, and you will never read it! And before you go on some high horsed tirade, let me remind you I still have eight days to write as poorly as I like!

My synesthesia has been acting up more than normal. I've been tasting things that don't have tastes. It's a little weird. You've probably experienced a little bit yourself. You know how sometimes things taste like they smell? This is like that except that this song tastes like it sounds. It doesn't happen with every sound or even every song. Pandora has played a lot of Sixpence None the Richer songs, though, and something about her voice just tastes very strong, and very good. I'm getting addicted, and bought their Christmas album. You should too.

Ordinarily I don't like when people sing a classic differently, but I kind of like how they tweaked the lyrics of Angels We Have Heard On High. Their rendition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel is the best thing I've listened to since before Jars of Clay's Good Monsters album. She (Leigh Nash) does an interesting thing and plays with the end of the chorus the first time she sings it, then sings it normal the second time. I like that she doesn't "act" like this is how everyone should sing it. She just feels like singing it differently, but also likes the original. My approval says a lot as she's tinkering with my favorite Christmas song, and I think my record as a traditionalist is rather clear.

When did I become a music critic? Soon I'll have to write a webcomic, get some bird tattoos, and stay up past 5am each morning twittering that I'm sorry the comic's so late, as if I owe it to you. Imagine if I had to write a blog post every night for a living. The post-quality would drop dramatically I think. I'm not sure I could garner thirty-six events a day anyway.

I've been waking up exhausted lately, too. I don't know if I just have unrealistic expectations for sleep, or if it's not normal to always be this tired. I know I used to always be this way. But without me noticing when it began and when it stopped, for a brief period, I had energy. Maybe it's seasonal? Maybe I have more energy when the sun is out. I know I love just taking the sun in when I can. For some reason I don't do it every chance I get, and will in fact, spend a lot of free summer days indoors, slaving over a blog post. Or watching The West Wing. Whichever.

It could just be my dreams. They're becoming more intense, lately. I wonder if that's connected to the synesthesia. Maybe my brain is just getting more warped all around. I took a nap today, and dreamt that Conan O'Brian hired Salvatore Maroni (the mobster whose legs are broken when Batman interrogates him about the Joker) to extort us for the firewood stacked at my mom's house. We gave him the wood, but then rebelled, and in the process, one of my coworkers was shot. Then a friend of mine helped carry him into the Batmobile and we "drove" to the hospital with little care for what carnage we caused to surrounding traffic. I woke up stressed because we weren't sure he was going to make it. He lost a lot of blood at the scene.

So now I've covered my tastes in music, odd brain conditions the majority of people can't relate to, and dreams. What other pearls of great writing do I have for you? Read on, my friend.

Movies! My dad saw the Matrix a couple years after it came out, and of course it had amazing reviews. So when he saw it, he had impossible expectations, and didn't really enjoy it. To be fair, I'm not sure it was really his kind of movie in the first place. Something similar happened with Donnie Darko for me. Everyone said I would love this movie. It was okay. The dialog wasn't anything special. The plot was fine, and there really weren't any time-travel issues. It was almost completely well thought-out. Does everyone else realize that his sister dies? He saves his mom, but his teacher and sister still board that plane that loses its engine to go back in time and kill Donnie.

On the flight home, the movie shown was The Time Traveler's Wife. I enjoyed it, but despite it's time traveling, it wasn't really my kind of movie. I like happy endings, I guess. I can appreciate tragedies (this one was mixed comedy and tragedy), but I don't necessarily like to watch them. There were a couple time related plot holes I noticed. He has the most gray hair at his wedding day, more gray than he has when he dies. The second one is even more minor. When he first talks to his daughter, she's ten and says it's been five years since she last saw him, but in the last scene, she's nine and he visits. It's obvious the writer meant that it's been five years since he died but I'm a nitpicker. I pick at nits.

SQL Azure had a successful release at PDC '09 in November, alongside the rest of the Windows Azure Platform. It's still crazy to me that we made a very stable V1 quality product in such a short time. Microsoft truly does employ some of the best minds on earth. My group's project is largely finished. There's always maintenance, but the majority of the work is shifting down toward SQL Server functionality rather than work in allowing users to connect (clearly they can already do that quite well). This means pulling out the C++ hammer after two years of it collecting dust. C# might just be the best language ever written. Certainly SQL Server has to be more performant than managed code allows, but for most of your average programs, C# is more than fast enough, and the ease of programming more than makes up for the small bit of performance gain you'd probably never use were you to use C++. C++ is indeed a powerful language, but it gets so complex if you want it to be as performant as SQL Server or any other operating system like software. Just what little I've seen since I've been moved to that code base has been crazy brilliant code. There are brilliant things I never would have considered doing that are difficult to read, but can't be refactored because they're so much faster, and "simpler" to a computer. I wish I could explain a couple, but of course I'm NDA'd. Also, I suppose you wouldn't care much anyway, seeing as how you're probably a banker.

The biggest time suck for me lately has been Dragon Age: Origins. That is a great game. I don't think I like it more than KotOR, but it's certainly close. KotOR is a little more light-hearted and it's Star Wars. Dragon Age takes about 50 or 60 hours to beat. I started three games before I finally actually went about beating it. The first two I made mistakes in choosing abilities, and got stuck trying to beat enemies on easy. I, I don't like to talk about it. But, I did get a good feel for the game and earned myself a little foresight to make precognitive decisions. I don't care that some people would call this cheating. Cheating is using the console to add abilities and health and kill everyone on the screen. Mage is by far the most power class, especially on easy when there's no friendly fire. That was the class I chose for the third game. The ending is tricky. They give you an option that is inherently evil with no evil consequences. It makes you think, I suppose. My justice sense is just falling flat on its face, and that bothers me a bit.

Within those three games, I completed both the female romances. I didn't go for the elf, no matter what Penny Arcade says. So, when I finished the game, I wanted to play again, this time on normal difficulty and as a different class. I figured there was no new story line to gain from being male again and started a female character. You can tell the game was written by guys, because there are few options you can choose that I don't think many women would think to say.

Well, night two ends here. I still have a few more topics on which to write, but they will have to wait, as it's 3am now.

 

top | 0 Comments Emmanuel Tuesday, December 22, 2009

 

I do believe it is time again to write. This shall be a post without commas.

I'm not sure I could even bring myself to post such an atrocity even if I wanted to. Ew. I mean really. Ew.

This is attempt number two. It's bad writing to mention mundane things like that, though. Who of you really cares that I started writing a post earlier, and now, since it was lame writing and half finished, will be discarded? Therefore I resolve in the new year to not mention writing you shall never see. A bold gesture, to be certain. How many of you would state such on a public blog? Never mind that you don't have a public blog, and even if you did, you'd probably not have this particular writing impediment in the first place. The answer remains probably none of you!

There is a lot to cover from the last two months, and doubtless, I've forgotten most of what I wish to convey. This has indeed been a thought-filled blogless span.

Pandora is playing in the background. It's been a long time since I've really listened to music anywhere but the car. In junior high and high school, I listened to music almost constantly when on my computer. In college, I didn't like wearing headphones and Swood and I didn't often play music when the other was in the room, which was most of the time. After I got out of the habit, it somehow became distracting.

Recently, I've tried to branch out in my musical selection, inspired by several influences, but primarily Vin, I think. I figured Pandora would be the best way to find stuff similar to what I already like. What I like is becoming an ever-shrinking subset of what I have. There's some music that I'll always love, because it is genuinely good, even timeless, like Rich Mullins. His music doesn't sound like the 90s like Michael W. Smith's 90s stuff does. I'll always have a soft spot for Christian classic rock and roll, too, like early Phillips, Craig, and Dean. But a lot of what I have, or used to love, just sounds immature to me now. I don't really like songs "for the lyrics" like I used to.

Ok, seriously Pandora? This is the eighth time you've played What Child Is This today. I don't care that they're all different artists. Special case this as Christmas music and realize songs with the same name are the same songs. End rant.

Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving, I visited Alexander, and before I headed back up to Redmond, I downloaded the Pandora app for my phone. The first channel I tried was "Seabird." It did a good job giving me what I like, I'll admit. Most of it was The Fray and Seabird, with one or two from Jars of Clay. This, however, is not what I was looking for. I wanted to branch out -- not hear music I already knew I liked. I remember when Pandora first came out. I had the opposite problem. It didn't distinguish Christian from mainstream music, and it couldn't figure out that I was looking for contemporary Christian. Now I can't avoid it. It did better when I entered "Work by Jars of Clay" rather than just "Jars of Clay," since Work isn't one of those songs they play on Spirit1053. By the way, that album is still one of my favorites, especially Work and All My Tears. Should anyone reading this live to attend my eventual funeral, I want All My Tears played there. So weep not, for me my friend when my time below does end for my life belongs to him who will raise the dead again. After some wikipedia queries, it appears the song was originally written by Emmylou Harris. The Jars of Clay cover is better. So, yeah.

Vin, as I've not talked about her here before, is a girl from CCF I always deeply admired. She and I ever only talked briefly when we did at all. But I could always tell she was consistently genuine in her life. And she loves and cares about people. That much is evident even from a distance. I wrote this description in post attempt one: There was a girl I've thought was absolutely beautiful since I met her. She's meek and funny and smart and a good writer. She's got cuteness all over. I knew her from CCF, and she was one of the people who hung out all the time with the group of people who hung out all the time, and I never really got involved with that group. I still can't decide whether I regret that apathy or not, but there's not a whole lot of use in regret in this case. One day in May or June, I got a facebook broadcast mission trip support letter from her, and so we got to talking. It turned out we had quite a bit in common, from upbringing and family life, to comedic snobstitude. It turns out she and I have a lot in common as far as pasts go, among other things. We share a similar sense of humor--Demetri Martin, South Park, Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and a mutual hit-and-miss feeling for Family Guy--as well as snobbiness about writing and music. At first, in July, I honestly did just want to be friends, but soon I had a crush on her. I swore to myself and friends that this girl was different, and I still believe she is as a person, but perhaps not as a crush. It was humbling, after she left on her mission trip, to realize how blinded by infatuation I can still get. Don't get me wrong, she's a wonderful girl, and any guy, myself included, would be lucky to have her someday, but at the moment, that's not feasible, and I don't have those kind of feelings for her. I should quit here. This is spiraling in and downward, not up, up and away to the next paragraph.

A month or two ago, my mom's cousin emailed me requesting a locally produced CD. Apparently he likes to listen to a Seattle radio station when he visits, and it produces a CD each year with the best songs it played. It's only sold at Starbucks in the area, so he asked me to get it and send it to him. I bought it within a few days, but it took me until this past Saturday to finally get it mailed. I don't know why. I just couldn't. There are some things I just can't do. It was the same feeling I got when I needed to apply for scholarships, and I just couldn't make myself do it. It's not like I didn't want to get the money, or that they were particularly challenging, but I couldn't bring myself to sit down and do it. I was afraid to, for some reason. I hate that about me.

My mom gave me my favorite chair that we'd had my whole life for my birthday a year and a half ago. The cats over the years had destroyed the back, so we picked out fabric and she recovered it. Since she was working on her masters and getting married and her normal level of school work, not to mention getting the house ready to sell and dealing with the divorce, it took a year for that covering job to be completed, and I got my chair the day I began working at Fir Creek back in July. All of this should be old news to you loyal readers, who I'm sure have read and reread each of these entries at least once per entry after it, just to make sure you don't miss any of the key plot. Anyway, my cats have destroyed the back of this chair to a far worse state than the original covering. They've pulled the back halfway off, and frayed the edges of it so it can't be tacked back together. I finally figured out a stopgap, and put my white board right behind my chair and held up by the bookcase behind it, which makes the bottom half of my bookcase nearly inaccessible, but I didn't use that half often anyway. This paragraph is only relevant because right now, I'm using that whiteboard as a desk across my tub. It was tricky to figure out how to keep it from slipping off the thin lip on the walled side of the tub, but pushing a chair up against the overhanging edge seems to do the trick.

None of this, however, is really that relevant to these past couple months. I don't know why I'm stalling.

Denna and I have always been flirty, even since we broke up over a year ago. It's just fun, and harmless, and relaxing. I was having a particularly rough November, and one night it came up that I hadn't seen Donnie Darko. That night I was also feeling particularly out of touch, literally, and Denna suggested I should fly to Texas and promised me a movie, popcorn, and a cuddle buddy. That sounded like a good idea, and I hadn't seen her in six months, which is a shame considering we talk almost every day, even if only to say hi.

Meanwhile, Bill began organizing a trip to Costa Rica and invited me on it, as well as to finance a large portion of it. When he and I went to Jamaica, I had been offered my job at Microsoft the day we flew out. I was super excited, and hoped to live on $35 grand a year, giving most of the rest away, so he was holding me accountable to that. It turns out that $35k was an unrealistic goal, but I still do have the ability to give significantly, so I am glad he asked me. On top of that, Microsoft will match whatever I give toward the trip, so it's super-effective!

I pledged to give a significant amount toward the trip, but the exact figure was still up in the air. Also, I was wavering on whether I wanted to go on the trip or not. I did, but I didn't, but I did. It really depended on my mood, and my mood fluctuates irrationally since my pills don't work anymore. In fact, I ran out of pills, easing myself off them as I was told I could. Part of the thing that kept me from going was whether I could actually afford to. And I was worried that if I went to Texas, I couldn't afford to give as much toward the trip. But I really wanted to go to Texas. And if I couldn't afford to fly to Texas, what business do I have donating ten times that much toward the trip? One night, I just said screw it, and bought the tickets. Bing Travel is amazingly accurate at predicting plane ticket prices. The first night, it recommended buying then because prices would rise $50+. I thought that meant like within the next week. The next day they were up $52. The new prediction was +$100, so I bought then and there. After that, I felt completely free to go on the Costa Rica trip.

The longer it's been since I posted last, the more I've come to think I was wrong about Heaven. I read the first two chapters of that book I mentioned. I'll finish it, but I've got a couple others on the stack that I'm now in the middle of. For one, my, and I'll wager your, image of heaven is greatly contorted. It's not at all harps, halos, and clouds. It's supposed to be earth as it was meant to be, what God originally envisioned before the fall. There will be perfect justice with no sin and thus no wrath. People reap exactly what they sow. Everything bad about this earth will be fixed -- not gone, instead made new, made perfect. This is good news and something to look forward to, and something to live for now. I misrepresented what the pastor meant when he said, "No one runs a marathon for the shirt." As often happens when a new, big idea breaks into my head, I get a little obsessed and ask a lot of questions. For instance, Jesus says in Matthew that there is no marriage in heaven (besides that of the church to Christ). If heaven is earth as it was meant to be, does that mean that marriage was sort of a patch to keep us safe in this fallen world? There were animals in the Garden of Eden. It follows then that there will be animals in heaven. Will our pets from this earth be there? I'd always assumed no. Now I wonder.

When I purchased my tickets, I picked them as close to the front of the plane as possible, even though that put me in a middle seat each way. I've found that one of the things I hate most about flying is waiting to get off the plane. I think this hatred stems from many years of traveling with kids, and out of courtesy, waiting for everyone without kids to get off first. When I travel, if I can avoid it, I don't check any bags, so it actually does help me to get off the plane quicker, since I don't have to wait for baggage claim, like everyone else, otherwise I probably wouldn't care.

Something went wrong when I booked, though. I got a couple emails about it, saying I needed to call them or look online. I did both. On the phone, I couldn't get ahold of a person, but the recording said my tickets were fine. I got another email, and checked online this time, and the status was booked and purchased, so I assumed there was a bug elsewhere.

 

On Friday, I got to the airport, and the self checkout said there was an error, so I stood in the one-person line at the full service desk. I guess I didn't write my address correctly for my credit card, or something, so he set me up, and I ended up second or third row from the front on the aisle, so that was awesome. Until I realized that it cost me $30 for service at the airport. Nickel and diming you, I tell ya. I discovered another peeve, or rather rediscovered, because I know I blogged about this after or during my Australia trip, centered around planes, and that's that people disobey the people who tell you when to board. "Now boarding group one." Ah yes, I'm in group six. That must mean me. My justice sense (for which I really need a good made up word, possibly a port manteau -- yes, I'm officially accepting ideas in the comments section) alone is enough to increase my blood pressure a little, but the real issue, I found this trip, is that the overhead carryon space gets taken up by people who cheat, and then I have to put my bag further back, which means now after the plane lands, I have to get back, and then back forward, which probably costs me more time in the long run, than just choosing a seat further back.

I needed the trip, itself, even if it wasn't that great. Had I not gone, I probably would have driven myself a little crazy. I'd also have had a lot harder time agreeing to go to Costa Rica. Denna and her roommate Cindy, both, were not in the happiest places in life, and there's not really a lot anyone can do about that. Denna's ex-boyfriend who proposed to her at one point had just died in the Iraq War. Anyway, when she had promised a movie, popcorn, and a cuddle buddy, that's about what I expected, and it didn't happen. We're not as flirty in person as we are over SMS, for one.

We toured the Bodies Exhibit on Saturday. That was difficult. The first thing they show you is a knee with bone cancer. Why that? I do fine with bones and muscles, but split a bone or brain and I get a little queazy. Even the word "marrow" makes my skin crawl. Oddly, the one part I did enjoy, was the fetus section. It was the one part that seemed to celebrate life. The rest seemed to me to be macabre.

On the trip home, the self check-in did work, but there was a big button for changing my seat, so I pushed it, just to see if there were any better. There was one, two rows back from where I'd originally chosen, that was in an aisle. I figured the tradeoff was worth it. The plane was late, and then I boarded when I was supposed to, when groups five and six were called together (I was group five). I got to my seat, and a woman approached me, asking if I was perchance traveling alone. I said I was, and she asked if she could have my seat, since otherwise she couldn't sit next to her husband. I caved, and ended up nine rows further back with a window seat. For a while it looked like I'd have a seat between the aisle guy and me, but the last person to seat herself sat between us. There's an empty seat immediately behind her, but she's sitting next to her husband, so it's not like I can blame her. It took me a good twenty minutes to depart the plane, compared to what should have been five to ten minutes in the seat I booked. The moral of the story is nice guys finish last.

I talked to my dad for the first time in well over a year sometime in October. He facebook stalked me and wrote me a message, which I'm sure he felt heartfelt. I could still see the underlying manipulation, and his ever-selfish attitude, evidencing that he has not changed, so I wrote him a terse response. Within a few hours, I had a second message on the thread. If you give a mouse a cookie. I didn't give him milk.

There's a new story that I've told probably fifty times now, because I was so excited. I went into the Company Store for a couple copies of Windows 7. I was a few moments too late, as the guy in front of me got the last copy of Professional, so I just sucked it up and spent the extra $10 for Ultimate. I stood in line, head down as I wrote my employee ID on each of the boxes. A femme called me to the counter, and I passed the two boxes over to her. When I looked up I was stunned. Like, I can't explain it other than that one if summed up all the other cute things on the earth, kittens and baby seals and everything, she'd still be a little cuter. We shared a little small talk. She asked if I was doing anything fun that evening, and I told her I was going down to Swood's like every Friday night. I asked her the same, and she frowned and said she had to work, but that her sister was in town for the weekend, so she was looking forward to that. I left the store and immediately texted Denna and Athena about the development.

I started heading south, and hit heavier traffic than I've been in there. Traffic began a mile or two before the I-405 exit, and then was solid until exit 7 or so. I was in it for about an hour, the whole while thinking, "I should turn around and go get her number." I'd never been so close to doing it either. Usually those thoughts are just a silly fantasy, but this night they were urges. Eventually I decided by the time I got back, the store would be closed anyway. Or if it weren't, what was I going to do? Wait around until it wasn't busy, or until it closed and run after her or something? I looked at the receipt because sometimes those have a name on them. All it said was "cashier 10 register 3." I got to Swood's apartment's parking lot, and sat there for a few minutes, deciding what to do. I pulled out my phone and looked up the number of the company store. Then I spent another five minutes with my finger hovering over the call button, having to press around it so the phone wouldn't enter sleep mode. I finally decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and without thinking, sent the call. An older woman picked up, and I told her I was trying to get ahold of the cashier I had that night, and wondered if she knew who "cashier 10" was. She asked me if I knew the person's name because the numbers aren't bound. I said I didn't, so she asked at what time, and I told her 6:00. Twenty seconds later, a giggling girl picked up the phone. I fumbled some words out including "I can't believe I'm doing this" and asked for her name and number. She hesitated and asked for my name, which I gave. I told her I understood if she didn't want to give me it, then she paused and said "sure why not?" I wrote it down, and then asked again for her name. Then we hung up (or so I assume; I don't really remember much more of that night except that I couldn't eat).

Saturday began, and I called her around 1:30, expecting her to pick up and say she was with her sister, and then to get a better time to call. I got the generic Verizon voicemail message. I left my number and told her I'd like to grab coffee with her sometime. I started to get a little anxious, but not overly so, about whether she gave me her real number or not. On Sunday, she texted me. She apologized for not getting back to me the day prior--her sister was in town so they were hanging out--then asked how old I was. I was relieved three ways at once. First, that meant I didn't get the number wrong nor did she give me a fake one. Second, she was indeed my cashier, unless two cashiers had their sisters in town on the same weekend and were excited enough to mention it to perfect strangers. Third, I couldn't tell for sure how old she was when I saw her. To tell the truth, I couldn't remember what she looked like. I remember how I felt when I saw her, but I don't remember almost any features. I remember thinking she looked between 18 and 21, but I couldn't be sure. Besides, I'm really bad at guessing people's ages. Since she asked me, I could ask her. I told her how old I was, having briefly considered the "I'm 35, happily married with 2.5 kids" response, and quickly discarding it. She told me she was 21, which is perfect. So then we set up coffee for the following Saturday at 10:00.

I was good and didn't contact her at all for the whole week. Saturday morning, I got there at 9:50. I sat there for a while. Eventually I texted her, describing my attire, in case she saw me and I didn't recognize her. Around 10:15, I walked out of Starbucks and called her, getting her voicemail. At 10:30, one of the Starbucks workers asked if I was waiting for someone. I told her that I was, but that I was beginning to suspect I was being stood up, so I purchased my hot chocolate then. At 10:40, she texted me, saying she was really sorry, that she had been sick all week and had just gotten out of the doctor's office. She'd meant to call me the night prior to cancel, but was so exhausted that she fell asleep. I asked if she wanted to reschedule, and she said yes and that she'd contact me the next day to tell me how she was feeling. We had a short, playful conversation after that, and then said goodbye.

Sunday came and went, and she didn't text me. Thursday came, and I decided that it was time to throw in the towel, sending her a rather epic text message, which left the possibility of a future date open, should she ever change her mind.

I'd been a bit excited because, had it worked out, this would have been the first girl I'd dated within 2 years and 20 miles of me since my first girlfriend. But it didn't work out. Now a month later, my PM, against my expressed wishes, went to the company store and asked about her. They told him that the day before had been her last day and she had moved back to Utah for school at BYU. He told me this a few days later, and I texted her again (breaking my vow of silence) to confirm this story (he might pull this as a prank), which she did. She's rather witty, which makes this one potential relationship loss sting a little more than normal. I like when people pick up on something and run with it. Sure, she could be a friend who was witty, and that'd be fun, but it'd also be hard and edged with a tinge of regret.

This past weekend, Fircreek had a reunion Christmas party, and a bunch of us met at Bubba's house. It was good for the most part, but I'm still forming thoughts on it. Relationships were strained, or so I understand, by the end of the summer, and people from all factions were present. I may have been a little short with one of the guys, when he tried to belittle SQL Azure and asked, "One gig? Why wouldn't you just get a flash drive?"

After the party, I drove Mangofiki home, and then headed to Bill's. He was up with his girlfriend in his room discussing a book, but I hung out with a couple of his housemates and Courtney. Poor Courtney had a computer virus and was running XP Media Center 2005. I tried everything I could think of, including bittorrenting the Windows ISO (which she had rights to and a CD key), but the version I downloaded was SP2 rather than the original 2005 version or something, and the key didn't work. On top of that, the virus was still there, despite overwriting all the Windows files. The whole night, I was on a roll with over-the-top sexist comments. I'm pretty sure Courtney would have punched me a few times, were I not working diligently toward her computer's recovery. The guy between us got punched for nodding at one of my comments. Alas, I didn't succeed at getting the machine working, but at least she can log on now. Courtney is going on the Costa Rica trip with us, so I'm sure I'll get to know her much better in the months to come.

That's not nearly half of what I have to write, but it's what's getting posted tonight. Maybe I'll write more later this week, or maybe you'll have to wait until January or February. Sucks to be you.

[bigbruise]

I ate too many Thin Mints.

I was doing so well in early January with the frequent posting. No longer being on vacation was probably the reason for that end. Yet another thing the masses can blame Microsoft for. Microsoft: multipurpose scapegoat.

Lots of things have happened. Thirty-six, in fact. But where to begin, or rather, where to continue after my dramatic, yet enlightening first sentence.

I'm getting more plugged in at church. That's been good. A few weekends ago, I attended a Post College/Early Career retreat at Cascades Camp in Yelm. Ashley used to go there for summer camp when she was younger. I can see why she enjoyed it so much more than Miracle Ranch, though, we stayed in hotel-quality rooms, whereas I'm pretty sure she was in lodges. My goal for the trip was to meet people, and considering I went and literally knew not a person there, it would be hard not to call that a realistic goal. The theme of the weekend was "change," which was perfect seeing as how this is the first time in years that I've felt relatively stable in my situation. I spent a lot of the time wondering if God had a reason beyond meeting people for me to be there, and on the last evening, it occurred to me that my circumstances aren't changing, but I am. At least, at the time I thought I was.

The first night, the speaker asked if anyone trusted him simply because he was a pastor. I did, so I raised my hand, not realizing that he was asking for a volunteer. So I went up there and we did a trust fall, only I had to close my eyes. And then he started walking away, and I could tell he was walking away because he kept talking as he did it. Then he told me to fall back, and it turned out he had silently got another guy to stand behind me. It fit his talking point pretty well, basically saying that we need to trust God even if he doesn't catch us the way we expect, or it doesn't look like he will. I feel a little deceptive though, because when I heard him starting to walk away, I figured it out pretty quickly that he was getting someone else, which still would have been a major trust thing--not blind faith, but trust that he was doing as I had figured--except that I heard the guy snicker quietly at something the pastor said, confirming my suspicions. What's weird though, and one person I talked to noticed this, is I still involuntarily tried to catch myself. Since I'd been called up there, everyone knew my name, and for the rest of the weekend, I was trying to play catch up with an already-feeble name-remembering mind.

I think I can remember at least four or five people, besides the people in my small group, that I got to know at least a bit. The rest really were a blur. Somehow my synesthesia came up in one of the ice breakers, and the girl who was my teammate in Team Nertz got really interested in it, along with three or four others. I'll break my aliasing rule here with the first person I told about it, who was Sarah (and not my teammate). The first time she asked what color her name was, I said green. Then she got the other girls around me and asked again and I said red. That really bothered me, even though I had told them that it's not deterministic. It bothers me that I feel like I'm making all this up, even though I know I'm not. So it kept eating at me into the next week until I figured it out. It depends on how the person says it. It seems to alternate between hunter green and burnished red, and it all depends on the inflection of the first syllable. Exaggerating for effect, if the person says "sear-ah", it's green, but if they say "sarr-ah" it's red. Obviously, it's just "Sarah" and "Sarah," but I guess I pick up on very minor differences in the sound.

The next Friday after the retreat, the PCEC group had an Olympics Opening Ceremony get together at one of the guys' apartments. I think about half of us had been on the trip, and the other half were new. I got to know a couple people a bit better.

I had been hoping my Nertz partner was going to go to the Olympics thing. She had expressed interest, and she seemed cool for the time we spent together. She, like everyone else does at one point or another, called me Justin by accident. So from then until the end of the trip, we were Team Justin, as Justin was neither of our names. After Nertz, we played some Taboo, and it's like our minds were melded on a few of the rounds.

Also, outside of the PCEC group, I attended the church's Foundations class, which is required for membership, and is basically a three-lecture series on the history and vision of the church, followed by twenty minutes of question and answer time with the pastor. On the second week, a question was brought up, and the pastor kind of dodged it because he was going to cover it in the third week, but then there were technical difficulties in the first two (simultaneous) services and he had to give his sermon twice, meaning he couldn't do question and answer time with us, and we never got the answer. The church's core beliefs don't mention Heaven or Hell anywhere. Clearly the pastor believes in both, and teaches regularly with both in mind, so it's kind of odd that they don't show up in the list. At the end of the third week, I filled out the form for beginning the membership process, and one of the requirements is getting involved in some sort of ministry, so that'll be good for me, even if I don't know what it'll be yet. I really don't want to do powerpoint. When I meet with my membership sponsor, I'm sure we'll go over some options.

I just remembered another reason I haven't been posting lately, and that's that I accidentally lost my blog layout while trying to make a couple minor improvements. Every single time I think, "do I need to save this?" and choose no, I end up losing it. You'd think I'd learn. The mistake was having three versions of the template open at once, and one was very old. I accidentally copied that old version into the official template box, thinking it was the one with my new changes, and clicked save, because the preview button wasn't working. It was something like that anyway. Somehow I didn't have the newest version with my newest changes open, and so I lost them. Then I got sad and didn't post for a while.

A couple months ago, I started watching the West Wing again with the Agathons. I believe I've mentioned this before. Then Christmas break happened and they were out of the state and we were all busy, so I didn't see them for a bit. Meanwhile, I needed my fix, and now I'm more than halfway through the last season. Again. They're still in season 3, I believe, and I'll go back and watch it with them. I'm so weak willed.

Swood and I went snow boarding a few weekends ago. Neither of us had been up since my parents took us up to Crystal my first year in college. We didn't last very long either, so very out of shape. He had a better excuse than I did, which was that he was trying out some used boots that his coworker was trying to sell, but they were too small. I just ran out of steam suddenly on like my 5th or 6th run. It was fun, and worth the money, but I wish I had more endurance in the calves.

I was really hoping I'd get a promotion back in January. It didn't happen though. Maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear, but it seemed like I would have, had we had the budget. My boss says that if I maintain my current direction, he'll submit my candidacy for promotion in July. It's not that I really need the money, or even want it (though I do want a house soon), but it's not good to stay at my level for more than a year, and it'll have been two for me.

Work is going well though. We're expanding a bit, so I get my own office again here soon. I'm not quite eligible for a window office, but there's no surprise there. I think the bar is four years for this coming shift. We got a new member on our team whom I really like. He transferred from somewhere else in Microsoft so he has more seniority than I do, so it's interesting being more senior within the group but less senior as a dev, and seeing what he inherently understands and what he needs explained. Recently, I've been put on some more challenging tasks, specifically having to do with C++. I finished three major tasks this milestone, checking in the last one early today. My boss gave me a box of Thin Mints as reward. Then I ate too many of them at Swood's place.

I started up WoW again. I just renewed my subscription a couple days ago, starting my second consecutive month for the second time ever. Usually I'm bored after the first month. I got my druid from 10 to 56 in the first month, and now he's 58 and ready to move into the Outlands. Soon I will have bird form and be able to laugh at all the people who had to spend 600g on flying mounts. Seriously, why bother with any of the other classes? Druids are just going to be better anyway.

I also restarted Mass Effect since the second one just came out. Helo has played it through a few times and told me none of the side quests are worth it. Now having beaten it without doing a single side quest, I can see why he says that. The first time I attempted it, I got so very bored wandering around doing things I didn't really care about for no real incentive. Then I got stuck on one of the missions, though at the time, I thought I had chosen a planet at random for a side quest. On the second time through, it turned out it was the mission to save Liara. Go figure. Also, I accidentally pressed the R button (rather than the R trigger) while in the Mako and discovered its cannon. That would have been useful before. That game poses some interesting decisions. One of the things I don't like about the Batman movies, even though I think they're great, is that he's placed in impossible and unjust situations with no right answer. This game has a few similar spots. I bought the second one today, and if you've beaten the first one, you can load your character into the second one and it changes the storyline a bit. I talked to Helo and asked him a few questions about the decisions I made. One was right at the end, and I don't much care for the consequences so I think I'll load right before the final boss and change some history before going on. I wonder what the second game will do with it. Maybe the first history disappears, or maybe it says "I see what you did there." My guess is the game does an autosave behind the scenes as you beat it, and then whatever happened in that save is what gets loaded into game two. Since there's only one autosave slot, the first history would be overwritten. On a side note, Amazon has gotten amazing. I bought Mass Effect 2 this morning around 11am, and it was at the base of my door when I got home at 4:30.

I've been doing less reading than I did over the break, but it's been a different type of book too. When the pastor blogged about Taproot Theater's rendition of the Great Divorce, I decided to read the book. It's really short, but now one of my favorites. I wanted to see the play, too, but I never got around to it. The theme of the book is that Hell is as much man's choice as it is God's wrath. It went through numerous scenarios of how these various people all decided they can't like Heaven. The first guy doesn't want to be in a place that accepts murderers even if they have repented and he and his victim are on good terms now and everything. Another guy just wants what's due him, but can't see that no one is due Heaven. It's quite brilliant.

After that, I picked up Mere Christianity again. I first started reading it in 9th grade, but then school ended, and with it, silent reading and I never picked it up again. He starts it out well, and the way he laid down his arguments reminded me a lot of a transactional database, quite possibly because I work with them. In a transaction, you do a bunch of work and then commit it all at once, so that if something bad happens in the middle, you're not in this inconsistent, wrong state. It just reverts back to how it was before you started the transaction. So, Lewis starts out by doing a bunch of quick transactions. He makes a statement, and then proves it. Commit. Statement, commit. Then a he starts taking a little longer, and he builds up quite a bit, then brings it back home to connect with what he already has committed, and adds that to his database. You can also think of it as like a construction project. He builds his foundation first in quick, flat layers, then starts to build the framework. However, after he has this framework, he kind of abandons it and assumes the building is built. He starts a new transaction and makes a bunch of arguments, then never ties them back down to what he already has, and moves on without ever committing. That bothered me a lot. Now I'm into chapters where I don't agree with at least a portion of what he's saying. It's not necessarily bad to read something you disagree with, but when you're going in, expecting to agree with it all, even in a "I know it's right even if I don't like it" sort of way, it's a little discouraging. The latest thing I've disagreed with is that he says that God only looks internally at your decisions, and not at the outward magnitude of the consequences. If you were brought up in a horrible, cruel fashion and end up murdering a thousand people, but refrain from the ten thousand deaths a "lesser man" would have committed, that person is actually better in God's eyes than the silver spooned man who lets his neighbor go hungry. (Lewis didn't actually say this, but it's what I extrapolated.) I think God must look at both the internal struggle and decisions as well as the size and depth of the consequences.

Before these two books, I was at the beginning of the second book in A Song of Ice and Fire. The first one, Alexander loaned me, and I need to give it back to him. The second, I bought in electronic version from Barnes and Noble. I don't have a Nook, so I've just been using my phone, but the LCD doesn't do great things for the eyes for sustained reading like that. I really want an eReader, but I'm not sure which one I want to get, nor am I sure I have the money right now.

'Tis the season to do your taxes. I tried out the online version of TurboTax and wasn't particularly impressed. The free version seems well and good, but because of my stock awards and sales, I'd have to upgrade to the $15 version or whatever, only, when I had it connect to Fidelity to download my information, it got it wrong and basically counted twice all the income I had put into stock, and so ended up saying I still owed the government $1100. When I manually corrected it, it dropped down to $188, but I'm not sure that value is right either. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's and until last year, she'd always done our family's taxes herself, so she has some experience. I'll see what value I (or we) end up with, and if it's not less than 0, Swood's dad offered to do my taxes for $20. The only reason I might still owe money like TurboTax said, is that I sold a bunch of stock to give toward the Costa Rica trip in December, but didn't donate it all until January, so I can't count it towards last year's write-offs.

Well, it's getting late, and despite the short length of this post, I'm heading to bed.

[Guest]

Today I met wisdom incarnate. He's the former Bishop of Rwanda, having recently retired. He spoke for an hour or so at the beginning of a day dedicated to explaining the vision and execution of World Relief Rwanda. This is a man who represents and leads the entire country through the Anglican church, a man who speaks to hundreds if not thousands at a time, a man who speaks to and councils presidents and ambassadors, here to talk to the twelve of us.

He didn't speak on behalf of World Relief, but he definitely agreed with their work and methodology.

The Rwandan government relies heavily on the Church to care for the most vulnerable. That is Jesus' mandate for the Church, and the Church therefore, presumably, is the body most fit for the task. Is it the government's duty as well? Yes, I think it is, but in the US, the Church often shrugs off its responsibility, its core purpose, because we can rationalize that our government has already taken care of it.

It's entirely foreign to me that government should rely on the church to do anything. It seems to me our government tries to do what would make our lives better, avoiding at all costs any relationship to the church; the church is a hinderance, not an asset. Recently I was considering whether it might not be a good idea to completely remove marriage, a religious notion, from our laws. Let the church handle religion. Hearing Bishop John's telling of how the Rwandan government and church work together, complement each other, may have turned me around on that. Of course, it's easier when 90% of the population claims to be Christian.

The Bishop talked a bit about the US, where he has lived in the past, and some of the Church's failures there. One of those failures, he said, is not being able to talk about Christianity in the schools. I assume he means students not being able to, but he didn't specify. I asked him how the church could not fail in that regard and he said it needs to change its attitude; it needs to be more humble. He said the Anglican church has figured out everything, and it leaves no room for the Spirit. He then asked if he had answered my question, which I felt he had not, so I asked how that would change the government's position on religion in the schools. Essentially he said the government doesn't value the church because we no longer have anything of value to offer. "The church doesn't do magic. If you put salt in a pan and heat the pan with the food and serve it immediately, the salt won't have added any flavor." He suggested that if we humble ourselves and serve rather than rant, in a generation or two, we may see change in how people view Christianity. It's certainly food for thought.

Another culture shock that I mentioned previously is Rwanda's view of Sex. "Professor" Maurice, my translator on Thursday for the pastoral retreat, talked a bit about the Mobilizing for Life program they have which teaches faithfulness and abstinence to combat AIDS. I asked a devil's advocate question, as I do so often, "When the US, historically, has taught abstinence only, it's failed miserably. It doesn't reduce the amount of sex, it reduces the amount of safe sex. (Thank you CJ Craig.) What do we expect to happen here?" In the last three or four years, the number of sexually active youth in areas where the benefits of abstinence has been taught has dropped from 33% to 12%. Maurice talked about a lot of testimonies. Pastor Phil said there are statistics to support this as well. He went on to talk about the many supporters of Rwanda, whether they be governments or organizations, that all have agendas for Rwanda and Africa. They all have their own ideals. Much of what comes in is helpful, from financial aid to education to entrepreneurial spirit. But with the good also comes the bad and the ugly, and just because the US can't keep its dick in its pants, doesn't mean the rest of the world can't. Since then (two hours ago) I've been thinking about what could cause this separation in values (and abstinence is a value in Rwanda). I know it's not belief in the Bible, as this education is still being taught to the country and roughly one in three pastors aren't even "born again." It's not ancestral roots (they're not being taught it by their parents) as polygamy is an issue here. I'm left thinking it's our media, our advertising, our obsession with sex in the first place. They have no sex appeal ads because they have no ads at all. I'm not blaming the media outright as the media wouldn't present what we don't want to see. There's a Jack Johnson song about this called "

".

These two pointed questions earned me the prestigious Hardest Questions award during graduation from World Relief University.

I overheard at the end of Bishop John's talk, on the way to tea that Rwanda is, too, materialistic. Americans put their faith and trust in the objects they own. Rwandans put their hope in the objects they think would make their lives complete. I guess Americans do that as well. It's an interesting thought, to be sure.

What I've learned today is that life as it's meant to be is hard. In fact, it's impossible. The amount of forgiveness, the metaphorical seventy times seven, for every possible way someone can sin against us, whether that be accidental, misunderstanding, cruelty, thievery, rape, or murder of loved ones... how can you? With the 1994 genocide raw in everyone's minds here, it makes all of this that much more real. The amount of healing through forgiveness that's happened in the last 17 years is phenomenal. Selling your stuff to support those in need? I can easily give, and in fact enjoy giving, out of my abundance, but ask me to sell my tv, or laptop, or car to help someone? Not happening. LIfe, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? God gives us life and the liberty to do with it and fail as we please in our own pursuit of happiness. Life is the one thing we, as Americans, feel we have as our own. How can we give that up completely? It's impossible. "With Christ all things are possible." It's hard to comprehend, much less believe, much less act on.

On lighter topics (and it is now this entry's tomorrow, about 18 hours since starting it), we left our hotel in Musanze yesterday morning. Before leaving, we walked up to the Catholic church about five minutes away and prayed for the region. Dyanah didn't walk with us. I thought she was being lazy since she got in a car that was to pick us up at the church. It turns out she was leaving, so I missed my chance to hug her goodbye. Nothing grieves me more than missed opportunities for relationship, romantic or not. To my future girlfriends, never tease me by offering a kiss and then denying it because of something, legitimate or not, I did. It tears me apart.

The ride to our new home, where the day-university class was held, was about 40 minutes long, bumpy and upward. (We're just about to leave this place, and I just carried my bags up the stairs to where the SUVs are. To give you an idea of the elevation, not only am I winded, which would be normal, but everyone else has mentioned being winded too.) We got some beautiful shots of waterfalls and people working their fields. The retreat center we went to has the most glorious view I've ever seen, tenfold and then some. It overlooks a large lake with several islands in the middle. There's no electricity to the islands, so there are no power lines crossing the water or anything else to mar the scene. Not that I've ever been a poetic writer, but I doubt anyone but a poet laureate could capture the view. Or a photo. With the world's best camera. Yeah, you really should just visit.

Glory be to God, we had a bathroom door in our room.

It has rained fairly frequently, so we haven't had much opportunity to see the whole thing unclouded, nor have I had any time to journal outside.

Because I don't believe I've yet stated it, and it really is one of the main points of this trip, I'm going to attempt to explain World Relief's purpose here in Rwanda. "To empower the local church to serve the most vulnerable." We've (the world) found that dumping money in Africa hasn't worked. In fact, it has worsened the situation by creating a dependency on those who've tried to help. The old give a man a fish, teach a man to fish. The only way Africa will ever succeed in betterment is if it does it itself, if it owns it itself. World Relief believes the best organization to serve the "most vulnerable," the poor, the widows and orphans, the down-and-out, is the Church, as it has been called by Jesus to do so. Further, with 90% claiming faith, it's the largest social network in Rwanda, already in place.

Jesus calls himself the groom and the Church his bride. World Relief sees itself as the maid of honor, the woman whose job it is to help the bride to have everything she needs, and then to step out of the way.

World Relief doesn't supply any financial incentives for pastors to join in their programs, except in the beginning for a free lunch and transportation. The pastors or other Rwandans own everything they do. World Relief just supplies training (trainers of trainers) and curriculum. If people think of a program as World Relief's, they'll become dependent on the organization.

This kind of thinking is difficult for task/results-oriented people and organizations. "89¢ a day will let this child go to school." That organization will, unfortunately, never go out of business, never succeed in its goal of saving Africa. Even organizations that agree with World Relief's way of doing things are often pressed by boards for results and will pay for food and transport for every meeting. Now pastors aren't going to the meeting for the benefits of the meeting, but for free food and the extra money left over after expensing transportation. Once again, they're taught that white people will give them money.

It calls into question, a bit, our (Bethany's) partnership with Living Water International. Wells are great, but it'd be better if the Africans paid for them. They also break fairly frequently, so that's another opportunity for African business. Elizabeth has mentioned this to LIving Water (whom primarily in the past has been sponsored by organizations and companies that want to boast they've put x wells in Uganda), and said Bethany is more interested in a relationship and partnership with the people our wells have gone to, and that we also want a maintenance plan in place for those wells. It sounded like, from talking to her, they were noncommittal. She said she'd call again when we get back.

Last night at our team time, Richard tried to make joke to tease me about Dyanah, but accidentally said [Caleb] instead of Jordan. After a team-wide fit of laughter directed at Richard instead of me, Elizabeth asked if there was romance there and I shrugged indicating a little. I guess she had no idea. She had even pointed out at breakfast one day that the only two other single people on the trip were women too old for me, and "I guess you'll just have to find an African."

This morning before our mostly-daily devotion, we did a quick highs-and-lows. At the end, I appended a sappy, half-joking low that I didn't get to hug Di goodbye. This unfortunately coincided with a side-effect of my Vyvanse, watery eyes. I don't know if anyone noticed or thought I was tearing up over it. Amongst the laughter at my bringing this up, I heard someone say I was doing it wrong, that I was supposed to be embarrassed so they could tease me. Ha.

We spent some time debriefing. I've said it before: I don't really come with expectations because I don't know what to expect, and I don't want to be disappointed. The disappointments I've had were minor, a missed hug, paying more than I'd meant to on a souvenir chess set, not having as much a-few-on-one time with the pastors on Saturday. I spent the last twenty minutes of that debriefing time writing this, which is really debriefing in itself.

This whole trip we've been examining poverty. This trip is based on a book called When Helping Hurts. At the beginning, it does a deep dive on the various forms of poverty. It's essentially when our relationships to God, self, community or environment are out of whack. This is to say that we ourselves are quite poor as well. We don't lack materials, but our relationships to ourselves and to our communities are really screwed up. To God, I'll leave on a per-person basis, and in Washington, we're at least trying to be environmental. Anyway, financial poverty affects all four relationships, at least in the theory presented by the book. I asked the group whether it was fair to say that Jesus experienced no poverty. The consensus was that he did not. Then I asked if he was materially poor, which he was. I'm still thinking that out.

When we came back from personal reflection, Richard said something profound (or maybe this was sometime else). He said, "it's much easier to sympathize with people when they act against us when we recognize their actions as their own poverty."

Last night, the Nertz crew played a couple games. Lindsay crushed us in the first 100-point series. She wanted to go to bed but we prevented it and I actually dealt her cards for her so she had no choice. It was only a 75-point round and it looked like Richard was going to finally win, but I passed him up in the last hand. Tonight, however, our dear Richard finally won, and won big, two 100-pointers in a row. After the first, he took off his shirt and ran and danced around. I'm surprised he didn't give a speech. I'm glad he finally won. I was starting to feel bad for him, but I never let anyone win. My mom never let me win growing up, and I really appreciate that.

During last night's games, some wild African dogs tried to get into the room we were playing in. We shut the door just in time, but until after the games ended, they puppy-guarded us. We waited and watched for a few minutes as they ran around the yard playing with each other. It felt like they were waiting for us, and then, miraculously, they just left. We hightailed it out of there as quietly as we could, back to our rooms. About 80% there, when Richard knew we were home free, he stopped suddenly to freak out Lindsay, who had been significantly the most nervous about the run. Good times.

I'm running out of pages in this 100-page notebook. Most of the left hand pages are empty, so don't you worry about losing a second of Rwandan play-by-play. Except about Saturday. I just really don't have anything to say about that day.

[futures]

The confusion is strong.

[bigbruise]

 

Saturday, March 26, 2011

 

If you've not seen Sucker Punch, stop reading this right now. Watch the movie, and then come back.

I watched Sucker Punch with Swood last night. The movie itself was very good. It was shot well, very imaginative, interesting, and hard. There weren't a lot of lines in it. The main character talked only a couple times. The same could be said of Wall-E, and I only know one person who didn't like that movie.

I've heard that they had to cut a bunch of the movie in order to keep it PG-13. It looks like they'll release a director's cut but according to this article, it won't quite have the scenes I'm hoping they'll have. It didn't need more action; it needed more gut wrenching or perhaps more explanation. I should clarify; Sucker Punch was plenty gut wrenching, but if there are 18 minutes more, I expect that some of that should also be gut wrenching.

I know the point was to let your imagination do the work to convert the actions in the brothel to actions in the asylum, so maybe more explanation would ruin it. But maybe it wouldn't. I want to know how the other two girls (Amber and Blondie) died. I can't imagine the orderly would shoot them. Also, how did Blue "own" Dr. Gorski (the dance instructor) in the asylum? The opposite was true when Sweat Pea escaped. In the asylum, Baby Doll had to distract the guards. In the brothel, she was distracting patrons. Why would they keep her from escaping? I would expect in order to live with themselves, they would have to convince themselves that these women chose this lifestyle and were free to leave. Why would they stop her?

I'll definitely see the movie again, but probably not until it comes out on Blu-Ray. I want to figure out who told the story, who the narrator was. At the beginning, I assumed it was either a grown up Baby Doll, or just an arbitrary narrator. At the end, I started to think it was Sweat Pea, since she's the only one who saw the Wise Man/bus driver or the soldier boy who ended up in the bus line in front of her. It wouldn't explain how she knew anything about Blue being arrested, but the narrator in 300 didn't know anything about the story after he was sent back either. Sometimes you can't over think things, and this is one of those.

On a last note, I'm surprised that they showed Baby Doll's face at the end. Swood said she gave a meaningful blink, perhaps implying that she was more herself than she should have been, but I didn't notice that somehow. Also, that implication would take away from the movie being a tragedy a little, like the opposite of Magneto still having a little of his powers left at the end of X3.

Only three times in my life have I felt the urge to kill someone. In none of these cases did I know the person, nor was I near them. The first time was watching Call+Response with a couple women from the church I was attending. The second was hearing stories before my trip to Costa Rica last year, about children who had been sexually abused by their fathers or foster fathers or uncles or anyone, really. The third was last night.

The first scene brought forth such a visceral reaction in me, I needed to see the stepfather dead. I began to hope this movie would go V for Vendetta style and somehow, she would kill everyone who deserved it. I began to add people to the list, though in the end, it turned out to only be three: the stepfather, Blue, and the cook. Dr. Gorski was added and then removed. Of course, that's not what happened.

In Knights of the Old Republic you have a good/evil, light side/dark side (being a Star Wars game) meter. Various actions throughout the game make you a better or more evil character, and your decisions somewhat affect the rest of the storyline. This implicitly gives you a goal of doing the right thing every time or the wrong thing to push your character in one direction or another, and based on that meter, the storyline changes and you either take over the galaxy or save it. Taking a middle of the road approach has no benefits. This goal to be fully light side or fully dark side made decisions easy. If someone deserves death but there's an option to let them live and be arrested, you've got your light side choice. If someone stands in your way, but you are strong enough in the force to Jedi mind trick them into jumping off a cliff, you've got your dark side choice. (Admittedly, I choose that one every time, even though I go light side. It's way too hilarious, and they had just beaten up a homeless person.)

Mass Effect is similar, except in both cases you're trying to save the galaxy. Things just change based on your approach. Either you're a peacemaker, a Paragon and only kill when necessary and after every peaceful solution has been exhausted, or you're a Renegade who threatens and sometimes tortures people to get results. Some actions require a certain amount of Paragon points or a certain amount of Renegade points. What's interesting in Mass Effect is that they're not mutually exclusive. If the game were long enough, and therefore you had enough opportunities to gain enough morality points, you could be full Paragon and full Renegade, giving you the power to do anything to achieve your goals. In Knights of the Old Republic, dark side points are negative light side points.

In Dragon Age, there is no meter. You have literally hundreds of decisions to make, you make them, and they affect the storyline, not your character. You can spare someone's life, and they might go kill someone important. You might spare someone's life, and they might turn their life around and help you later on. Your character is no more evil or good than the person behind the keyboard. Your companions care about your decisions and will either become your friends or your rivals, but those characters are also neither completely good nor completely evil, and so are also bad indications of whether you made good choices.

What is a good choice in that game? You can make choices based on your own sense of justice, or if you've played through already (or have a walkthrough), you can make choices based on what you know will happen. You can make choices on what you know will make your party members like or dislike you. Your choices are just your choices.

I know that I immerse myself in games like this a whole lot more than other people. I cannot make myself play Knights of the old Republic as a dark side character. I actually feel guilty any time I see that red icon indicating a gain of dark side points, even when I try to do what is right. In Dragon Age, you have to live with the ambiguity of not knowing whether you made the "right" choice, and then with the consequences of your actions.

Life has no meter. You can choose to make the best actions in your eyes, actions that preserve, or you can make destructive, and often fun, choices. You can make choices to expand your horizons, choices that don't preserve the status quo, and also don't break your moral code, or you can choose to sit back and do what you've always done for fear of looking the fool.

Denna and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon last December. The website said that we had to have a wide-rimmed hat for the mule rides to keep the sun out of our eyes. It snowed, however, and there was no sun. Our snow jackets were sufficient, but Denna and I donned our cowboy hats nonetheless. We looked like total fools, dorky tourist parents, but I smile every time I look at that hat in my rear view mirror.

I don't dance. Sometimes I wish I danced, because people always try to get me to, but I have such a fear of looking like a complete idiot that I don't. I know that if I did, and I likely would, I would develop a terrible tic.

I often lean toward not dancing than toward wearing ridiculous cowboy hats. Preservation isn't always good.

Life has no meter. Sometimes you know you've made an evil decision, and you feel guilty. Often your decisions are just ambiguous. More often than I'd care to admit, I make a decision that should be ambiguous, and feel righteous about it.

Last night I prayed on the way back from Swood's. God, how can you abide the stepfather? He does not deserve the air he breathes. I wanted him to die. At first I was upset with myself for wanting revenge, but then I realized he hadn't actually done anything yet. He obviously had the intent, but vengeance would be getting back at him. So what is that feeling? Righteous fury? Were I in that scene, and had I pulled the trigger, would I have gained light side points or dark side points? She did have a third option. She could have fired a warning shot at the ground, then told him at gun point to walk with her to the phone, then dialed 911. He would have been arrested, her sister would have lived. He probably would have gotten off, as intent is not enough to convict someone, and restraining orders are only paper walls. Would I have pulled the trigger? If my sister were in danger.... I'm sure I could easily plea self defense, but what about the meter?

There's a freedom in having no meter. You don't have instant feedback about guilt. Life is certainly harder without one, but also a lot better. "Perfect victory."

God, how can you abide the stepfather? He does not deserve the air he breathes. Let's be clear. God hates death. He hates rape. He hates evil. But did I not kill Jesus? For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Did I not do to him what slavers do? A man does not simply become a slaver. He's twisted by need into a monster. In the end, he might not even see himself as a monster. And yet God loves me.

Justice begs mercy. At the INN several years ago, they were doing a sermon series that tackled seemingly contradictory virtues. At the end of each sermon, they nailed a piece of paper to the door, Martin Luther style. (wikipedia says that nailing probably never actually happened.) "Justice begs mercy" is the only thing I remember from that series, but it has stuck with me. Castrating a rapist, while poetically just, isn't actual justice. An eye for an eye doesn't help the person who went blind first. We long to make things right, but a loss of purity cannot be regained without God. God makes things new. We attempt to balance the loss by inflicting the same loss on the perpetrator. The only way to have justice is to admit that we can't achieve it, and what's left is resentment or mercy. Those are our options. Resentment only hurts the resenter. Mercy is not the same as pretending it never happened. It's not the same as reconciliation. If someone raped my sister, or killed my mom, or crippled my friend, or me for that matter, perhaps he belongs behind bars to prevent him from further damage, but when he got out of prison, has he really "paid his debt to society"? Will I feel like things are ok between us now? Of course not. I might have mercy on him in order to move on in my life, but without a miracle, I would never be reconciled to him. I would not become friends with him. God does not always call us to reconciliation. He does call us to mercy and forgiveness.

Life without the meter is better than life with it. We would be slaves to the meter. It would be easier, perhaps, to do what is right, but far harder to do what is Right. In Knights of the Old Republic, you are pulled along by your decisions. In Dragon Age, you are forced into the freedom to make your own decisions, your own path. In life, we have a God that knows that's how it is. That's how he designed it. Best of all he loves you and wants you to make the decisions that are best for you and best for everyone else. Those decisions are his path for you, crafted not for mass distribution via Steam, but for you individually. He wants to help you make those decisions, and knows full well we probably won't.

But there is perfect victory. In the end, the earth will be perfected, made new. In the end, we will be perfected, made new. As in Sucker Punch, perfect victory requires deep sacrifice. That sacrifice is God's own son. Baby Doll made that sacrifice and Sweat Pea survived and lived on her behalf. It was a good ending, debatably, but it was not perfect. In life, Jesus made that sacrifice and we survived. Jesus rose again. He defeated death. He gave a meaningful blink. This was no tragedy.

 

[Guest]

I ate too many Thin Mints.

I was doing so well in early January with the frequent posting. No longer being on vacation was probably the reason for that end. Yet another thing the masses can blame Microsoft for. Microsoft: multipurpose scapegoat.

Lots of things have happened. Thirty-six, in fact. But where to begin, or rather, where to continue after my dramatic, yet enlightening first sentence.

I'm getting more plugged in at church. That's been good. A few weekends ago, I attended a Post College/Early Career retreat at Cascades Camp in Yelm. Ashley used to go there for summer camp when she was younger. I can see why she enjoyed it so much more than Miracle Ranch, though, we stayed in hotel-quality rooms, whereas I'm pretty sure she was in lodges. My goal for the trip was to meet people, and considering I went and literally knew not a person there, it would be hard not to call that a realistic goal. The theme of the weekend was "change," which was perfect seeing as how this is the first time in years that I've felt relatively stable in my situation. I spent a lot of the time wondering if God had a reason beyond meeting people for me to be there, and on the last evening, it occurred to me that my circumstances aren't changing, but I am. At least, at the time I thought I was.

The first night, the speaker asked if anyone trusted him simply because he was a pastor. I did, so I raised my hand, not realizing that he was asking for a volunteer. So I went up there and we did a trust fall, only I had to close my eyes. And then he started walking away, and I could tell he was walking away because he kept talking as he did it. Then he told me to fall back, and it turned out he had silently got another guy to stand behind me. It fit his talking point pretty well, basically saying that we need to trust God even if he doesn't catch us the way we expect, or it doesn't look like he will. I feel a little deceptive though, because when I heard him starting to walk away, I figured it out pretty quickly that he was getting someone else, which still would have been a major trust thing--not blind faith, but trust that he was doing as I had figured--except that I heard the guy snicker quietly at something the pastor said, confirming my suspicions. What's weird though, and one person I talked to noticed this, is I still involuntarily tried to catch myself. Since I'd been called up there, everyone knew my name, and for the rest of the weekend, I was trying to play catch up with an already-feeble name-remembering mind.

I think I can remember at least four or five people, besides the people in my small group, that I got to know at least a bit. The rest really were a blur. Somehow my synesthesia came up in one of the ice breakers, and the girl who was my teammate in Team Nertz got really interested in it, along with three or four others. I'll break my aliasing rule here with the first person I told about it, who was Sarah (and not my teammate). The first time she asked what color her name was, I said green. Then she got the other girls around me and asked again and I said red. That really bothered me, even though I had told them that it's not deterministic. It bothers me that I feel like I'm making all this up, even though I know I'm not. So it kept eating at me into the next week until I figured it out. It depends on how the person says it. It seems to alternate between hunter green and burnished red, and it all depends on the inflection of the first syllable. Exaggerating for effect, if the person says "sear-ah", it's green, but if they say "sarr-ah" it's red. Obviously, it's just "Sarah" and "Sarah," but I guess I pick up on very minor differences in the sound.

The next Friday after the retreat, the PCEC group had an Olympics Opening Ceremony get together at one of the guys' apartments. I think about half of us had been on the trip, and the other half were new. I got to know a couple people a bit better.

I had been hoping my Nertz partner was going to go to the Olympics thing. She had expressed interest, and she seemed cool for the time we spent together. She, like everyone else does at one point or another, called me Justin by accident. So from then until the end of the trip, we were Team Justin, as Justin was neither of our names. After Nertz, we played some Taboo, and it's like our minds were melded on a few of the rounds.

Also, outside of the PCEC group, I attended the church's Foundations class, which is required for membership, and is basically a three-lecture series on the history and vision of the church, followed by twenty minutes of question and answer time with the pastor. On the second week, a question was brought up, and the pastor kind of dodged it because he was going to cover it in the third week, but then there were technical difficulties in the first two (simultaneous) services and he had to give his sermon twice, meaning he couldn't do question and answer time with us, and we never got the answer. The church's core beliefs don't mention Heaven or Hell anywhere. Clearly the pastor believes in both, and teaches regularly with both in mind, so it's kind of odd that they don't show up in the list. At the end of the third week, I filled out the form for beginning the membership process, and one of the requirements is getting involved in some sort of ministry, so that'll be good for me, even if I don't know what it'll be yet. I really don't want to do powerpoint. When I meet with my membership sponsor, I'm sure we'll go over some options.

I just remembered another reason I haven't been posting lately, and that's that I accidentally lost my blog layout while trying to make a couple minor improvements. Every single time I think, "do I need to save this?" and choose no, I end up losing it. You'd think I'd learn. The mistake was having three versions of the template open at once, and one was very old. I accidentally copied that old version into the official template box, thinking it was the one with my new changes, and clicked save, because the preview button wasn't working. It was something like that anyway. Somehow I didn't have the newest version with my newest changes open, and so I lost them. Then I got sad and didn't post for a while.

A couple months ago, I started watching the West Wing again with the Agathons. I believe I've mentioned this before. Then Christmas break happened and they were out of the state and we were all busy, so I didn't see them for a bit. Meanwhile, I needed my fix, and now I'm more than halfway through the last season. Again. They're still in season 3, I believe, and I'll go back and watch it with them. I'm so weak willed.

Swood and I went snow boarding a few weekends ago. Neither of us had been up since my parents took us up to Crystal my first year in college. We didn't last very long either, so very out of shape. He had a better excuse than I did, which was that he was trying out some used boots that his coworker was trying to sell, but they were too small. I just ran out of steam suddenly on like my 5th or 6th run. It was fun, and worth the money, but I wish I had more endurance in the calves.

I was really hoping I'd get a promotion back in January. It didn't happen though. Maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear, but it seemed like I would have, had we had the budget. My boss says that if I maintain my current direction, he'll submit my candidacy for promotion in July. It's not that I really need the money, or even want it (though I do want a house soon), but it's not good to stay at my level for more than a year, and it'll have been two for me.

Work is going well though. We're expanding a bit, so I get my own office again here soon. I'm not quite eligible for a window office, but there's no surprise there. I think the bar is four years for this coming shift. We got a new member on our team whom I really like. He transferred from somewhere else in Microsoft so he has more seniority than I do, so it's interesting being more senior within the group but less senior as a dev, and seeing what he inherently understands and what he needs explained. Recently, I've been put on some more challenging tasks, specifically having to do with C++. I finished three major tasks this milestone, checking in the last one early today. My boss gave me a box of Thin Mints as reward. Then I ate too many of them at Swood's place.

I started up WoW again. I just renewed my subscription a couple days ago, starting my second consecutive month for the second time ever. Usually I'm bored after the first month. I got my druid from 10 to 56 in the first month, and now he's 58 and ready to move into the Outlands. Soon I will have bird form and be able to laugh at all the people who had to spend 600g on flying mounts. Seriously, why bother with any of the other classes? Druids are just going to be better anyway.

I also restarted Mass Effect since the second one just came out. Helo has played it through a few times and told me none of the side quests are worth it. Now having beaten it without doing a single side quest, I can see why he says that. The first time I attempted it, I got so very bored wandering around doing things I didn't really care about for no real incentive. Then I got stuck on one of the missions, though at the time, I thought I had chosen a planet at random for a side quest. On the second time through, it turned out it was the mission to save Liara. Go figure. Also, I accidentally pressed the R button (rather than the R trigger) while in the Mako and discovered its cannon. That would have been useful before. That game poses some interesting decisions. One of the things I don't like about the Batman movies, even though I think they're great, is that he's placed in impossible and unjust situations with no right answer. This game has a few similar spots. I bought the second one today, and if you've beaten the first one, you can load your character into the second one and it changes the storyline a bit. I talked to Helo and asked him a few questions about the decisions I made. One was right at the end, and I don't much care for the consequences so I think I'll load right before the final boss and change some history before going on. I wonder what the second game will do with it. Maybe the first history disappears, or maybe it says "I see what you did there." My guess is the game does an autosave behind the scenes as you beat it, and then whatever happened in that save is what gets loaded into game two. Since there's only one autosave slot, the first history would be overwritten. On a side note, Amazon has gotten amazing. I bought Mass Effect 2 this morning around 11am, and it was at the base of my door when I got home at 4:30.

I've been doing less reading than I did over the break, but it's been a different type of book too. When the pastor blogged about Taproot Theater's rendition of the Great Divorce, I decided to read the book. It's really short, but now one of my favorites. I wanted to see the play, too, but I never got around to it. The theme of the book is that Hell is as much man's choice as it is God's wrath. It went through numerous scenarios of how these various people all decided they can't like Heaven. The first guy doesn't want to be in a place that accepts murderers even if they have repented and he and his victim are on good terms now and everything. Another guy just wants what's due him, but can't see that no one is due Heaven. It's quite brilliant.

After that, I picked up Mere Christianity again. I first started reading it in 9th grade, but then school ended, and with it, silent reading and I never picked it up again. He starts it out well, and the way he laid down his arguments reminded me a lot of a transactional database, quite possibly because I work with them. In a transaction, you do a bunch of work and then commit it all at once, so that if something bad happens in the middle, you're not in this inconsistent, wrong state. It just reverts back to how it was before you started the transaction. So, Lewis starts out by doing a bunch of quick transactions. He makes a statement, and then proves it. Commit. Statement, commit. Then a he starts taking a little longer, and he builds up quite a bit, then brings it back home to connect with what he already has committed, and adds that to his database. You can also think of it as like a construction project. He builds his foundation first in quick, flat layers, then starts to build the framework. However, after he has this framework, he kind of abandons it and assumes the building is built. He starts a new transaction and makes a bunch of arguments, then never ties them back down to what he already has, and moves on without ever committing. That bothered me a lot. Now I'm into chapters where I don't agree with at least a portion of what he's saying. It's not necessarily bad to read something you disagree with, but when you're going in, expecting to agree with it all, even in a "I know it's right even if I don't like it" sort of way, it's a little discouraging. The latest thing I've disagreed with is that he says that God only looks internally at your decisions, and not at the outward magnitude of the consequences. If you were brought up in a horrible, cruel fashion and end up murdering a thousand people, but refrain from the ten thousand deaths a "lesser man" would have committed, that person is actually better in God's eyes than the silver spooned man who lets his neighbor go hungry. (Lewis didn't actually say this, but it's what I extrapolated.) I think God must look at both the internal struggle and decisions as well as the size and depth of the consequences.

Before these two books, I was at the beginning of the second book in A Song of Ice and Fire. The first one, Alexander loaned me, and I need to give it back to him. The second, I bought in electronic version from Barnes and Noble. I don't have a Nook, so I've just been using my phone, but the LCD doesn't do great things for the eyes for sustained reading like that. I really want an eReader, but I'm not sure which one I want to get, nor am I sure I have the money right now.

'Tis the season to do your taxes. I tried out the online version of TurboTax and wasn't particularly impressed. The free version seems well and good, but because of my stock awards and sales, I'd have to upgrade to the $15 version or whatever, only, when I had it connect to Fidelity to download my information, it got it wrong and basically counted twice all the income I had put into stock, and so ended up saying I still owed the government $1100. When I manually corrected it, it dropped down to $188, but I'm not sure that value is right either. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's and until last year, she'd always done our family's taxes herself, so she has some experience. I'll see what value I (or we) end up with, and if it's not less than 0, Swood's dad offered to do my taxes for $20. The only reason I might still owe money like TurboTax said, is that I sold a bunch of stock to give toward the Costa Rica trip in December, but didn't donate it all until January, so I can't count it towards last year's write-offs.

Well, it's getting late, and despite the short length of this post, I'm heading to bed.

[bigbruise]

 

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

 

I suppose it is time.

Since October 1. Hum. Well, I briefly dated/flinged--flung?--a girl named Belle. Basically the first date went fantastic, which introduced super high expectations, that were later not met. It's entirely possible they were impossible to meet. Belle and I are still friends, though it took a couple months.

In the last couple days in Rwanda, we headed back toward the airport. On the way, we visited some orphans and widows, doing missionary work like a cop eats a doughnut. The woman my group met with was 51 years old and had an amazing, tragic story. Her husband was a fisherman and died drowning when she was in her early twenties. By then she had two kids, but her parents and parents-in-law disowned her. She couldn't afford the house she was living in, and had no where to go, so she lived, quite literally, under a mat for ten years. The neighbors took pity on her kids some nights and gave them food, some of which they smuggled in their shirts, so that's how the woman survived. There was something about her owning the house they'd lived in, but not the land it was on, and the man who owned it refused to part with it. He was planning on leveling the house, but since it was government-built, it was illegal. When we met with her, she was in the process of getting the government to step in. My favorite part was that she let us take the bench in her house, and pulled down some mats for herself. One of the mats, when unrolled, revealed a giant spider. I pointed it out, expecting her to whack it with a shoe, or ask me to. Instead, she slapped it, bare-palmed, it curled up, and she brushed it aside. My sister would have run to Uganda at the sight of that spider.

The day before we left the country, we had a one-day "retreat" for the World Relief staff. It was based around the five or six sections of the Lord's Prayer. We put out large sheets of paper with the section name at the top, then went around and wrote prayers that fit the section for World Relief and otherwhere. (Otherwhere passes spell check?) It was a fairly powerful experience. Afterward, it began to rain pretty hard. I walked out into it, getting soaked. The Rwandans thought I was crazy, which amused my team and me.

The day after we got back from Rwanda, I had tickets with my Microsoft team and Swood to see the Seahawks. We were to meet at a bar in Seattle, but I managed to leave my wallet in my bags, still packed, at home, and my 16-year-old face couldn't convince them I was 24. Our tickets were for seats literally the furthest from the field, the nosebleeds of the nosebleeds. We lost the game, though had we made the hail-mary field goal we would have won or gone into overtime. I don't remember.

When I went back to work, everything had changed. The two remaining members of the original project I was on had left to go work with my old boss. We had one new member, and two or three more on the way. Our code base had moved to an entirely different system. Seriously, I'm gone for two weeks and the team falls apart.

Within two weeks, I had to do my commitments. My boss helped me with those, and midway through, I realized, I'm not going to do these. It made setting them a bit easier, when then and there, I decided I was going to quit my job.

Obviously the next question was "What now?" The only thing that came to mind was teaching high school math, so I set my course, and looked for colleges. The only college that fit my schedule was SPU. For UW, I'd have to wait until the next October to apply, and start in spring of '13. Western, which would have been my first choice, had no Seattle satellite campus, and I don't want to leave my church. When I talked to HR about leaving Microsoft, she recommended CityU, but my sister is there.

A few weeks later, at one of my one-on-ones with my boss, he told me, as a friend and in no official capacity, that I should start looking for a new job. I started talking to people about my decision, outside of work (and with Athena). My Rwanda trip team (we're still meeting once every two to four weeks as we did pre-trip) was all very supportive, everyone saying I'd make a great teacher. My psychiatrist said she hears people frequently say they want to quit their jobs, and she always tells them to keep them, but in my case, that I should go for it. The only two people I told that weren't thrilled were my mom and Luke's wife--both teachers. My mom didn't want me to drop out of the computer field when she knows that's one of my (if not my) biggest passion, and she's been teaching for 35 years, is burnt out, and angry at what the government is doing to the system right now. Luke's wife is a second or third year teacher, and at the time, had been having a very rough year. Both of them are junior high teachers, whereas I want to teach high school.

I gave my two weeks' notice two weeks before Thanksgiving. My boss gave me the best compliment he could have: "Oh, I expected you to say you were going to Google or Amazon." My last day could have been the Wednesday before, but Microsoft has a long standing tradition of a farewell lunch, and I figured that everyone would be out of town, but be back by Monday, so that was my last day. Those two weeks were hard because it's Microsoft policy not to tell anyone except HR and your boss if you're actually leaving the company as opposed to changing groups. I spent a lot of it messing around with a MSR gadget, teasing out the peculiarities and attempting to train the guy who would take over my project. I spent a lot of it rereading QCtoo. The rest of my time, I spent talking to Vin on facebook. She is a wonderful person.

The person I hadn't told, come Thanksgiving, was my grandpa. I was not really looking forward to that conversation, but I've got a bit more ... I don't even know the word ... than my mom or sister. Hostility isn't quite right; indifference; rebelliousness. Combine those but only take certain portions of each: hostdiffousnessity--the attitude of I'm doing this, and I know it to be right, so you can condemn me or not and it won't bother me either way. It's being a teenage daughter, except right. Anyway, I don't even remember how it came up, but I ended up telling my grandpa I had given my two weeks' notice and was going to become a math teacher. His response was, "Good for you!" My jaw almost dropped. I know he and Grandma knew that I wasn't happy there, in fact they were the first to know, even before me, but they'd always tried to push me toward Amazon or Google. When my mom had told him she wanted to be a teacher, he was disappointed, though my understanding is that it was because of the pay they received.

Thanksgiving went well for me. Well in general, except for my cousins and sister, I think, and except for one or two parts, it went well for them too. Good food, good company, an interesting game of Apples to Apples--interesting because some people played it literally, my sister and I didn't, and my two cousins were too young to understand "Woodstock." "I like the bird." But, as the party was breaking up, my grandpa said goodbye to my sister asking, "So, are you on track to graduate?" Since my sister's taken five years to graduate, he's quit supporting her financially (or so I've heard). His concern can be interpreted as aimed at her success rather than her wellbeing. Then, he turned to me and said, "Follow your dreams!" A few moments later, when he was out of earshot, my eldest cousin turned to my sister and said in a bitter tone, "Or, you can just not go to college and have no expectations placed on you at all!" Good ol' family politics, I guess. Still, beats presidential politics.

My goodbye lunch was bittersweet, half because I was leaving and would miss the people who attended, half because half the people I wanted to attend were out of town still. I'll admit it's a little selfish to wish the guy were at my lunch rather than at Disneyland with his family. A little.

Of the process for leaving, I was most upset that they didn't let me keep my badge as a memento. I was tempted to leave it home that day, but my good nature prevented it.

The SPU program officially starts in late July, so I had/have eight months of unemployment. What allows me to do this, and to live while in college without a job, is my recently converted buy-a-house fund, a large sum of money sitting in MSFT stock. Assuming Microsoft doesn't go out of business, or drop its value by half, I should be fine for living for 36-40 months, without taxes. What I don't have is the $17k needed to go to school, so I'm hoping to take out some loans for that.

Everything just kind of fell into place for this decision. Last June, I'd planned on moving into a house I wanted to buy by February, so that's when I set as the end of my lease. As "luck" would have it, February is when Bob's roommate is moving out. (It's now one week until the end of my lease and she still hasn't so I need to do some more prodding.) Rent at Bob's place is a couple hundred cheaper per month. It's not huge, but it's some. SPU's program is 14 months, which is about the amount of living money I have, and it's somewhat targeted at people leaving the tech industry who want to teach math and science, which is me. My mom's an alumnus so I think that will help with admissions and tuition a little bit. A dozen other small things have just left me feeling at peace with this decision. It's where God wants me to be right now, and that's enough. It's quite the turn around from where I was a year ago.

Christmas was good, mostly because I got to see friends from all over. Vin came back, so we had lunch together at a place in Seattle. Denna, whom I'm renaming once again to Nicci (having reread The Wizards First Rule, and deciding Denna doesn't really fit--and I'm not choosing Nicci because she's Death's Mistress [one should hope not], but because she turns into a dear friend of Richard's, though not his wife) visited, and I spent a day barhopping with her and her sister, brother-in-law, and roommate and his friend. That day, my iPhone was stolen from my car seat through my window. I forget that Seattle is not Redmond. It was really being used as a glorified iPod, since I've been using my Windows Phone for over a year. Still, it would have been nice to keep, sell, or give away. It's missing the chip that makes it act as a phone, so they'll have a little more trouble using it. After the barhopping, I took the ferry over to Port Orchard and hung out at her parents' house, with some of her other Port Orchard friends. I'd been hoping to get a chance to talk to her one on one, but it didn't really happen. At the end, it was me, her dad, and her. Her dad and I played a game of chicken, and I lost. I was a little disappointed, until the next morning when Nicci told me that a lot of wounds between her dad and her were mended and that they were on significantly better terms, which were my prayers while driving on the way home, and had been for months before. God is good.

Frank was also in town, and the Quad had a good night of Apples to Apples, and dare I say it, Quelf. They are the only three people with which I could play that game, though perhaps on a different timeline, it'd be interesting with Goose as well. Much blackmail material was generated.

A lot of people, people older than me mostly, have suggested that I should become a technology teacher, or assume that's what I'm going for rather than math. It's really hard, and repetitive, to try to explain that there's a difference between computer science and technology, the same as there's a difference between math and accounting. I would love to teach computer science, but first I'd have to find a school that actually teaches it. That might involve working for a few years, and then coming up with my own curriculum. I don't know how good the AP CS curriculum is, but that might also be an option.

In order to become a masters student, you have to take the WEST-B and WEST-E tests. WEST stands for Washington Educators Skill Tests. The B is basic--reading, writing, and math. The E is endorsement, so in my case, math. I took the endorsement test first, and it was fun. I got something like a 78, but it's a pass-fail test with a 70% bar. The WEST-B, I got in the high 80s/low 90s for reading and writing, and a 98-ish in math. The scores they give you are on a 100-300 scale, so calculating, I'm guessing, is not a straight percentage.

In order to take the WEST-E, you can't bring anything except a calculator, and they give you lockers for your wallet, watch, cell phone, and anything else on your person. I thought I'd be smarter than that, and leave all my stuff in my car. Of course, that stuff included my keys. And my wallet, which normally has my backup car key. I do so love when I outsmart myself. One of the women who worked at the testing center was super gracious, and let me use her AAA membership to unlock my car. She even gave me a little cash for lunch while I waited for them. It's so great to meet people like that.

 

The SPU application was due February 1, but to beef it up a little, I was encouraged to volunteer at a couple schools. I set myself up to volunteer in a math classroom at a high school in Kirkland, but the Monday that week was Martin Luther King Jr Day, and Tuesday through Friday were snow days. The Civil Rights Movement strikes again! The next Tuesday, I went back to Port Orchard and volunteered in my favorite junior high math teacher's classroom on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday was insane. Because of the snow, the kids were rowdy. Also, because of the days missed, they had pushed back the end of the semester to that Friday, which meant the kids' grades were basically set in stone. No failing student was going to pass, and no high A student was going to get a B. No passing student cares that much about a percentage point or two, nor will they fail. The kids basically had no perceivable incentive for listening. Further, Cedar Heights's schedule is such that on Wednesday, he didn't have a plan period. Last, and probably foremost, he's a little too lenient when it comes to keeping the kids quiet, so when he gives that inch and lets them talk during homework time, they take that mile and don't shut up when he's trying to teach. In one period, he even lost his temper and sent two instigators outside for the rest of the period. At the end of the day, I was wondering if I even wanted to teach anymore. Also, that day, my car was towed because it was parked awkwardly, yet a legal 6" from the curb. Neither that, nor the $216 it cost to get it out of impound, helped. I decided to tough it out and stay Thursday. I wouldn't say it was a night and day difference, but a world of difference, nonetheless. The biggest thing, probably, was that I was ready for it. Second, he had his plan period, and during it, I went to my mom's classroom to see how she teaches. Her classroom management (crowd control) skills are significantly, well, better. It helps that she's been teaching longer, and also that her classes are all of a single grade, and thus she can reinvent her teaching style each year, whereas the math teacher's classes are mixed-grade, and students have expectations year-to-year. Also, apparently, the class I visited third period was her best, most respectful class. I finished that day thinking, "Ok, so this can be done." Still, the experience confirmed in me that I want to teach high school and not junior high.

It was good to see all the teachers I grew up with. Having lunch with them was fun, and interesting. I got the feeling that these particular days were hard for most of the teachers, probably due to the end of the semester, and a lot of the time was spent "discussing" student behavior. One interesting comment was that a girl had asked another girl out and was rejected. She ran out of the classroom, hurt, and I think went to the counseling office. The comment was that the girl who asked the girl out was committing sexual harassment. I'm thinking, "Really? How is that different than a guy asking a girl out?"

Friday was best of all, despite the Friday mayhem. During third period, I again visited my mom. She was teaching persuasive writing. The entry task was to pick a topic on the board and write a note to their parents trying to convince them of something. The topics were like "push back my bed time" or "let me dye my hair" or "give me more allowance". After a few minutes, my mom collected all the papers then redistributed them to other students. The task then was to write a reply as their parents, countering the arguments. I looked up at the board, read through the topics, and asked, "Do you realize you just put some kids on the wrong side of 'quit smoking'?" It got me a good laugh. I made a few more comments like that, and asked my mom at the end if I had been too disruptive. She said no, that having me had been good.

Some Saturday in January, I went to see Goose's play. She played Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. The part fits her almost perfectly; Goose is a nicer person. I went during a matinee because it was the last day, and I know that casts have parties after the last showing, which was that night. I wanted to see her afterward, but I didn't want to impose, having not seen her in a little over a year, and that being when she broke up with me. The play was fantastic, I thought. It was no new epiphany, but Shakespeare was brilliant. It kicked off a bit of a Shakespearen binge for me. I didn't actually do a whole lot--I read a little bit, enough to discover that so much is lost without the acting--but I thought about it a lot. Someday, I want to write a play, a comedy I'm sure. It always comes back to plot, though. It's the same reason I haven't written a book yet, either. The only thing I seem to be able to write about with any degree of skill is myself.

Most of the binge happened on facebook, and a friend of mine, a girl I almost went on a date with but then she got married, posted this clip on one of my statuses. I don't normally put youtube in my blog, but this is worth it.

Seeing the play also kicked off a bit of me wishing I was with Goose, and I tested the waters, confirming that she is, in fact, dating Benedick. I know that she's not the one for me, but sometimes things are hard to know. Later I told a friend I hadn't talked to since high school, whom I randomly chatted up on facebook, "She'd be the one that got away, if I weren't completely certain there's a girl out there whose better for me."

On the 31st, I turned in my SPU application. That's right, a full day before it was due. First time in my life. That afternoon, before turning it in, I had lunch with my old Microsoft pals, one to have lunch with them, and two, to get my letters of recommendation (which were incredibly kind) signed. It was a good thing they were signed, too, because they almost rejected one on account of it not being in an envelope. Alas, I had forgotten to print out the second half of my written thing, which was a list of teaching experiences I'd had, so I emailed that to them that night. All that's left now is an interview on March 10, and then waiting one to two weeks for an application letter. I got the feeling there were 100+ applicants per year, but ALL of the interviews, which are required in person, happen on the 10th between 8 and 4pm. I'm just trying to imagine how 100 people get interviewed in 8 hours without a LOT of interviewers. Anyway, I'm not too worried. If this is what God wants, then I'll be accepted. If not, then since I think God has me where he wants me right now, he must have a plan to get me to where I need to go next. Plus, it's not like I'm not an ideal candidate for the spot anyway. The only thing I could have done better, perhaps, was to double-major in math, but I took enough math to cover all the requirements for the MTMS (masters in teaching math and science) without taking any other courses.

As for girls, as there must always be a for girls, I'm a bit put off right now. A day or two ago, I was angsty and frustrated, and way too into it, applying my girl-situation to my identity, where it does not belong. So, once again, I'm at a place where if I find a girl, cool, if not, I have other things to worry about--even though I really don't, having money and no employment. Moving! Right. Good. I was worried I had nothing to worry about. Anyway, all that's really happened since Belle is a few girls I met for lunch, none of which went spectacularly. This latest one, I met in Bellingham, and I thought it went well enough to warrant a second date, but she did not. What was great about it, though, is that it got me to Bellingham where I met with Rufus and Solomon. It'd been entirely too long since I'd talked to either of them, and seeing them again was both wonderful and nurturing to my soul. Solomon is so sincere with his Christ-like love. While talking with Rufus at the VU, I saw a good six or seven other people I knew from back in the day, pastors and friends and Fir Creek counselors. I have no doubt that the reason I ran into this girl on eHarmony was to get me to Bellingham. Besides, who wants to date a girl that enjoyed The Phantom Menace and wanted to see it in 3D? *dog with shifty eyes*

The meeting with Solomon spawned off an email thread, largely about girls and what to look for in girls when looking to marry. I've read it a few times now because he is incredibly insightful. If I get his permission, I'd love to post it on my blog, or maybe a link to it. If not, well, sucks to be you, I guess.

I guess saying I only met a few girls for lunch isn't fair. For a little while, I was kind of seeing this girl. We met up a few times. She was the first girl I've ever really been on a date with that was (more than a year) older than me, though not much older. I'm not really sure why we dropped out of contact, but I think we both felt we should. I don't know. Looking back through nostalgia-colored lenses, I miss her a little. Or maybe (matter-of-factly) I'm just lonely.

The rest of these past months is just keeping busy. I refuse to get bored while unemployed. I've volunteered at my church and also at that Kirkland high school, though they have no place for me in the classroom right now. For my church, they have me doing repetitive menial tasks, which so far I've actually enjoyed. When they set me up to do some data entry, they showed me the software suite they're using, which only lets you search for one member at a time. I noticed that it runs on an .mdb (Microsoft Access) file, and told them I could whip together a quick program that lets you see all the people who are members in a list at once, along with all the people in the list who are new. Tomorrow I'm going to work with the volunteer coordinator to put together a rough spec, since my initial one-hour version doesn't quite do everything needed.

If I'm going to make that meeting, I should probably end this post now. I've been getting up, most days, at 8:30--quite a feat when I don't have anything to do during the day--and reading my Bible while sipping Frappuccino. I was never good at reading my Bible regularly, so I'm determined to make this habit stick.

 

[bigbruise]

[bigbruise]

Your stupid thread is ruined. 

 

EDIT: OP's thread intention was not stupid. just a question, but its stupid now. so fuck it

[abovetheearth]

expressing himself until this thread is SHUT DOWN

[bigbruise]

[agua]

1] i'm pale as hell too, can i be apart of that group?

 

2] how bout in the next thread zay zay starts we all act the opposite, like tell him how great his speakers are or how great his paramore collection is

[̮ ɤ ̮]

I had a hard time scrolling through the last page.

[bigbruise]

good

[Brock N Roll]

Lol

[aflycon]

I go to one (one!) fucking class today and this is what happens when I'm gone.

 

Simple.

[GradedOnACurve]

[GradedOnACurve]

[GradedOnACurve]

[GradedOnACurve]

[abovetheearth]

[BuzzersonKillwell]

Before ZayZay I didn't believe anyone liked Paramore. Then he showed up and it all made sense. 

 

So, in a way, I'm thankful for his presence. It provided clarity. 

[bigbruise]