If I asked myself at the age of 16 what I would be like at age 22 I would have said these things...
- With Child. (Accidental)
- Widowed. (Intentional...JK)
- Married.
- Have lots of weapons.
- Really ripped with tattoos/ear rings.
- Not in the states.
- Tight with my families.
But I can proudly and shamefully say I am and have none of those. If there was a zombie invasion I probably wouldn't live. I don't know how to survive in the wilderness. I have almost zero home maintenance and auto-mechanic knowledge. I don't play any instruments or sports. I am far from the man I want to be. But that in a nut shell was not the real problem. A lesson I learned long ago that never made sense has been coming back.
Before you can take care of yourself you have to look to the Lord. Look to the Lord and he will give you all your heart's desire. Or something like that... I have come far from low self esteem to super narcissism where I can't stand for things to not be about me.
Shouldn't Rec Week have been about improving my spirituality?
Shouldn't it have been about making me better and giving me guidance so I could get my 16 year old aspirations?
--Nope. Well yes, but mostly no. How do I make my life more about Jesus? Bringing glory to him, being in love with him and spreading his love 'like Johnny Appleseed' are supposed to be the staple. But like radiation to affecting ordinary people, results may differ. The super human powers are different each time. Strength/Agility/Telepathy...throwing explosive cards. Anyways. How that looks in everyone's lives will be different and that's what makes it hard to find out what it is for ourselves individually.
So what's there to do? Nothing but pray. Prayer is like the aphrodisiacs you give your spouse during dinner/pre bedtime. Kind of a chore to buy the chocolates/clams but you don't want to leave it out. Then you forget to give them any credit when it works. And you only go to the trouble when there has been an incredible dusty dry storm that few from the Great Depression will ever remember.
First off, I must apologize. I feel like lately I have abandoned the few loyal readers I still had. Even worse, they were faced with the same lame articles for weeks!
Recently I was at Rec Week (Christian Retreat) and learned quite a bit...
Besides a summary of most of the Old Testament and comparisons to modern day soap operas I also learned a bit of myself.
1. I don't like it when things are too happy.
- Ever since I was little conflict was always in my life. Whether it was between my mom and my dad, me and my bro, me and peers, the noise of conflict was always soothing. Instead of white noise machines, and recordings of beaches, I prefer to listen to blood curling battle scenes from Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, and random episodes of Jerry Springer. On loop is the only way to watch these things of course.
So what do I do when that happens? I have to stop it! I have to disrupt it... I think this happens a lot even in my friendships with guys and especially with girls. Every compliment I gave had to be followed by two severe disses.
George: Hey, sweet shoes!
Girl: What?--Really?! Thanks. I got them off (Website).
Girl: ::Smiles:: They had so many colors I regretted buying these for awhile...
George: Uhh.... Well. You should do your hair differently and not wear that dress anymore.
Girl: What!.. Why?
George: I think your forehead is too small to pull off the lots of bangs look... and this dress is not doing your body justice.
Girl: ... Thanks?
George: Yep.
And with guys.
Guy: Sup George?! How are you?
George: What, fag?!
So I think it's something to work on. Like if I have time... It's probably not that important.
2. I have soft hands.
- I must have gotten like ten splinters in my hands from random anythings... There was wood everywhere; what the hell! I was dribbling a basketball(Shocking, I know.) and I got a splinter. I caught a football and got another. Okay I didn't catch it, but when I picked it off the ground, it was like I squeezed a cactus made of wood.
3. I am grumpy when I am woken up from any nap/sleep.
- I remember used to living on campus and one time during a nap my roommate poked his head in and started to talk to me.
Roommate: Hey George, we're going to Wendy's, you want us to get you any foo--
George: SHUT UP FAGGOT!!!
After recently finishing Lord of the Rings it has gotten me on an elf-mania. I started to look up stuff from the Silmarillion and wikipedia and searched for answers that would give me a better understanding of LOTR. I was also then inspired to download almost every good Lord of the Rings game and beat them. After that I started looking for more games with elves to play and beat those too. Hell yeah, nerding it up.
Elves became most popular because of J. R. R. Tolkien and his attention to detail. Their popularity must have been a huge hit when the books came out. And over the generations it slowly died out and was something that you can't relate to as easily. But things like WoW bring them back. The ever-youthful, clear skinned, agile, asian dressing white people with their song like words with English accents are irresistible. This was all until WoW brought in the blood elves, and they now look Asian... if you choose it to black or brown hair...kind of. I remember when the first movie came out, my English teacher in high school busted a nut over Orlando Bloom. This was a lady that always giggled about Shakespeare's metaphors for the penis. She would often go on for half the period about the naughtiness of 'swords' and what not. Often when I left that class I would remain calm until I stepped outside, collapse then proceed to shudder violently from disgust. I would often bring a pillow cause I shook so violently I'd bang my head on the ground a lot.
Then I realized something after watching Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Sidenote: If you did not see any of the previous films there will be many things you don't understand. Vampires are the new elves, but derrty. They are the ever youthful, clear skinned, agile, 'fair' creatures that do it a lot. Angel, Spike, Edward Cullen, Dracula, Selene, and Sonja are all examples of the new promiscuous and slutty elves that do it in the derrty dark. Because vampires are immortal and generally set in a more similar world to ours it's easier to be able to bring them into our world as opposed to elves. If need be it's also easier to do flashbacks or just change the time settings to something more medieval. And because of that they are easier to relate to.
Gone are the days when vampires would scare you and make you barf on site. Well...not completely.
Elves in modern day?! Singing songs and shooting arrows does not sound as appealing as they do when they are in a fantasy. The only time I've seen this done well is in Hell Boy 2, and Luke Gross does not sing in it.
This is without going deeper into the more hardcore D&D realms where there's a million other elf races/sub-races. But I would briefly mention Drow Elves are like vampires! Except their allergy to sunlight is less harsh, they don't have to feed and are usually evil?
As I have previously said, I like to read random articles. And being so ADD I love to day dream, and in these dreams I make loose connections. Connections to the Bible, or to my daily life, or both are commonly made.
In boredom I occasionally visit NPR.org for news. And I found something interesting lately. There was once a snake that was three feet wide, and one ton heavy. It also presumably ate crocodiles whole. Scientists think for it to be able to have survived it had to be in a very warm/hot tropical place with an average of 90 degrees. But enough with the snake! What I was thinking was... Maybe Adam and Eve were not tricked so much as coerced. I always thought it was a dinky little garden snake with hypnotic eyes. But once you broke out of it you'd pick it up, wind it up like a sling and smash its brains on some trees.
But no! What if, it was a 42 foot long 1 ton heavy 3 feet wide titanoboa, telling Eve, "BI*boop* you better eat that apple." According to the article as the world grows warmer one day tropical climates would be able to contain such a creature... Which is hella scary, what kind of weapons would you need to fight one of those, much less an army of those.
---
I once read an article about a civilization that collapsed due to disease. As interesting as it was, it was nothing compared to the comments under it. Disease brought to the Americas have wiped out entire nations. Like most diseases, they come from animals. And while Native Americans and other cultural people lived in the wild there was a distinctive difference in their life styles. They did not have domesticated animals like the Europeans or have such close living quarters with them.
Which brought me to pigs. Pigs in the Bible are considered unclean and for the longest time it weirded me out. Jews too good for bacon?! Pigs carry so many diseases that are transferrable to us. It may also be because we have similar body parts(ie heart/skin tranplants). They also carry a lot of worms.
While Babe and Charlotte's Web has fooled the nation; their intelligence and charm does not fool me! These fat ugly animal's cousin, the feral pig, is one of the 100 most invasive species. Not to mention their subsistence diet means they could eat anything. This is including people, and after that they'd go rabid and become zombie pigs.
Mom: Hey George, come watch this on TV... This boy here was playing games for hours, he wasn't feeling well but continued to play...
George: And then he died, right?
Mom: Yeah...
George: I bet he was Chinese or Korean, right..?
Mom: Yeah. How'd you know?
George: Chinese and Koreans always do that kind of shiet.
Mom: What about Americans?
George: Americans value their qualities of life too much. They're also fickle and hedonistic.
Mom: Which one are you then?
George: Mostly the American...
Mom: Well don't be following all those Americans... doing this and that.
George: Don't worry I wouldn't do anything to myself...
Mom: Don't be doing that...geh stuff either.
George: What?
Mom: You know, 同性戀, gay. Don't be gay.
O_o
Few hours later.
George: Do you really think I'm gay?
Mom: LOL No... I just worry about you...
George: About what...
Mom: I don't know. I just think you'll get tricked into doing gay stuff...
That's as close as the translations get. I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what that means. My mom used to warn me everyday as a Freshman in college. She thought I was promiscuous and told me not to touch women that did not 'belong' to me.
And now for some reason she thinks I'm gay.
I'm not usually one to enjoy movies created by Christians when their intent is making something towards Christianity rather than making an original piece that the general population would feel comfortable watching. I feel like they usually limit themselves in what they can present and tell as a story. But! I recently saw Fireproof. At first when I got invited to see it with a night church I seldom attend, I looked it up and laughed.
Pay 6-8 dollars to see Kirk Cameron? I have spent better money going to Tapioca Shops/Drinks just to see the hot baristas. And even better money when I wash clothes filled with unexpected wallets. A movie made for Christians by Christians are usually prude with the amount possible offensive material (violent, sexual) with minor conflicts that feel out of place in such a progressive time. For instance in the movie the main character has a struggle with pornography, and to demonstrate it shows him trying to avoid the goofiest looking pop up window. I have seen worse things on the Disney Channel (Miley Cyrus Represent). To me, as a struggling ATECH student it just had me laughing. After a good four minutes of me guffawing and slapping my knee I unpaused it.
But that was nothing compared to the stereotyped black women that worked at the hospital. You betta stand yo ground, girlfreend!
On to the good. Besides the occasional goofy script hiccups the premise was something more interesting and more prevalent. In the age of over demanding divorces, in and outside the Christian community, I'm glad there are messages like Fireproof. Before watching it I thought only married people and courting couples would enjoy it. In it however there was something I have been waiting to hear for a long time. Usually I'm against doing spoilers, but I don't think anyone is going to watch it anyways. So if you haven't seen it and plan to, stop reading now.
Don't follow your heart, because your heart can be deceived; you got to lead your heart.
My new years resolution from last year was met. It was the only one as it will be this year. It was/is to stay alive. So please, no one cause me to stumble or sabotage it. My break was uneventful but unparalleled in relaxation and in selfishness.
I downloaded games and played them for twelve hour streaks and then I would go to sleep for the second night without showering. My brother would return when I woke up in mid-afternoon with my breakfast/lunch. I would sleep when the sun rose. Besides paying the bills for my parents and doing minor errands, the cycle would repeat and the layer of dirt on my skin would relatively rise with the stench I emitted. Those sweet days are over.
School has started. I regret registering for half my classes already. UTD is going through construction; continuing our positive linear relationship of [hate for UTD] vs [time]. Besides blocking all the paths I used to take(increasing my walk time by 10 minutes no matter what), destroying a third of the parking lot I always use (causing it to fill like 30% faster), the strange smell of horse pee from the dirt, and occasional tar, I would say I'm almost okay with it. Except they've been constructing stuff for the past two years.
The only good part is that it forces students to see each other more. Which for me means more hot girls. And dirty smelling guys.
