Happy Birthdays

Last night a bunch of us amazing studly guys from 1HP went out to serenade our good friend Sadie on her 17th birthday. We met in our hall, and after a hastily arranged practice, which involved Kevin attempting to learn Happy Birthday on the guitar we ventured forth into the night. Our mission was clear: to be as stealthy as possible in order to avoid the campus sfety patroling outside. As we embarked into the clear, cool night we noticed a lot of couple saying goodbye to each other before bed. And by goodbye I mean about 4 minute hugs...hey couples you are going to see each other again in the morning! I'm 8 hours away from my girlfriend, and if I'm doing pretty well with that I don't need to see you hugging your girlfriend like its the last time you are going to see her in 3 months every night...

Anyway, excuse the rant. We finally made it to MAP North side, and began our serenade. Launching into it at full breath, we let our glorious voices raise to the sky. They weren't very glorious but they rose, and we sang. Unfortunately I was the loudest and most off-key, but nevertheless we sang not to sound good, but to bring joy. And this we accomplished...so anyway, that was a good time and I felt I should blog about it.

Like a Child

Right now I'm listening to a sermon by Rob Bell. It is basically serving as my sermon for Sunday because I'm not getting out to church this morning. Oddly enough it seems to be the exact thing that I need to hear at this point in time. The message is called "Like a Child", and Rob is speaking on how children do things that God loves, and as adults we don't do those things as often as we should now. Some of these things are:

1)Don't worry.
2)Forgive and forget.
3)Don't live in a cycle of despair.
4)Not worried about what others thinks.

Now I'm sure different people struggle with different things on that list, but at least for myself I know that other than forgiving people, those other three gang up on me from time to time.

Take worrying for example. Being at college, I'm worried about school and grades. I'm also worried about trying to fit in and find people who really understand me. Then, in a different sense of worry, I think about finishing school and life in the real world. When am I going to get married? Where am I going to have a job? Why does it take so long? All these things combined with trying to balance a long distance relationship with Andraya, not to mention trying to stay in contact with all my other friends, while trying to forge new friendships here, it all adds up. So about once or twice a week I find myself either enormously stressed or really depressed from missing home. The missing home normally goes away when I actually hang out with other people and have stuff to do, but stress tends to stay with me. But kids don't have stress, and if they do it's about what kind of juice they have, not if they are going to get all their homework done and also manage to wake up for class.

Now I don't often live in a cycle of despair, but occasionally I find myself thinking very pessimistic thoughts, and these I realize are not what God wants me to think, and during the summer I was doing very good at recognizing that and shooting those thoughts down. In everything going on here I seem to have lost this skill a small bit. I don't have to fail, and everything will work out for good if I continue to love and seek God. And for all those people who say long-distance relationships don't work...with God nothing is impossible. I need to remind myself of that a little more than I do.

And then we arrive on being worried of what other think, of being afraid to fail. Yes, I am a perfectionist, but back home everyone knew me and to them I could never fail. Here, I'm scared to turn something into the paper for fear that it is going to suck, and people are going to say its crap. I don't know where this came from, but I know its a lie from Satan, and whenever I believe it I cease to trust God and the abilities He's given me, and then I am sinning. So if you guys could pray for me in these certain circumstances thanks...and thank God that I'm starting to pick up on this stuff. I can see the corner I need to turn, and I'm doing my best to speed as fast as I can toward it.

In Recent News

Well I feel like I should update on what's actually happening here instead of just writing random poems describing my mental state.

Yesterday was the OB service project. Requiring us to get up at 8 in the morning on a saturday to go help and serve the community does not sound like a good plan for a college campus, however the turnout was surprisingly large. Or maybe not so surprisingly large considered it is Grove City. Anyway, myself, Henry, Kevin, and Adam were the only brave adventurers from our side of Hicks. After grabbing a quick bit to eat we headed out to the IM room to meet up with out mentor groups, and do some serving. Regardless to say after my last mentor group dinner, where our intrepid leader Dale decided to eat at MAP instead of Hicks or the SAC, I was a little skeptical about what our mentor group was going to be capable of doing. Needless to say only 3 of the actual members of our group showed up: me, Andrew, and Tiffany. Of course this was all balanced out by sweet mentor group leaders Channing and Ashley to help Dale make better dining decisions.

So as we were heading out of the IM room we decided to get breakfast. Sigh. If I had known that we were going to get breakfast with the mentor groups I could have easily slept another 15-20 minutes in the morning. Well as we were finishing breakfast, during which Ashley reprimanded Dale for his obvious lack of tastebuds after he said he thought the food at MAP was just as good as Hicks, we embarked on our journey combining ourselves with another sweet mentor group. We left campus and headed to a trailer park behind the perennial amazing supermarket place, County Market, where we split into smaller groups and did various miscellanious chores for several of the older citizens living there.

My group consisting of myself, Channing, and Andrew volunteered to tackle a project vaguely described as "yard work, and there is mold on the house skirting". We arrive at the house and indeed find there is mold as well as a interesting problem of two boards that used to be in the ground now out of the ground. So me and all my trench digging abilities from helping my dad set up fences decided to embark upon that project, while Channing and Andrew tackled the mold. Strangely enough, I soon learned that the woman we were helping was my Spanish teacher's aunt. It's a small world after all....well this project took me a good 45 minutes to an hour as I was making sure to dig correctly and line everything up, while trying to remove the rocks that were blocking the board's intended path.

During this time, Andrew set off trying to clear the woods of some skunk cabbage which had apparently been smelling up the area. Now seeing as I was apparently the only one who knew what skunk cabbage looked like, I tried to describe it to him. I didn't do so great of a job, because about 15 minutes later he came back around with some random weed of sorts and asked if it was skunk cabbage. It wasn't so I then decided maybe I should head back and search for the skunk cabbage myself. There was only one skunk cabbage, but let me tell you, it was the largest one I have ever seen, which, in retrospect, may explain why Andrew could not find it based on my description. So we removed that, I finished up the board thing, and we left her house in much better condition and minus one smelly problem. And we got cookies!!

So then after this, and a potentially bad incident in which we parked in someone's space, which I still don't understand why it would make someone that mad, we headed to Sheetz to get some food and then to Memorial Park for a picnic of sorts. While in Sheetz we observed a pewter sculpture of The Last Supper, and were having quite a deal of fun placing various other pewter statues in this scene. Then we went to the park, ate, and played some frisbee to cap off an amazing morning. And the other mentor group was really sweet, and I met some really cool people that I hope to see around campus some more.

So that was the OB service project, well worth getting up for. To all of you at home reading this, I miss you guys a ton.

Relax

Stand here and let the waves of the ocean crash
Release
Let it all go
Throw it to sink in the depths of the deep blue

Feel the numbing sting of the chill
As the water surrounds your ankles
Don't run away
Nothing can happen to you

Watch the sunset
Burning a path across your vision
Scream if you need to
God will understand

Feel the breeze
Brush a seductive kiss across your lips
Give in
Let her charms draw you away

Sink into the soft rays of the sun
Feel their warmth caress
Your smooth, smooth skin
As sweat beads

Feel the massage of the wind
As it pushes and pulls you under its spell
Its magic drawing me in
Just drop everything you are doing
Follow where the Spirit leads

Feel the pouring rain
As it falls from the heavens
Onto unsuspecting heads
Its cool confession is almost enough to forgive
Don't let your mistakes drag you down

Fall into the only arms you'll ever need
Fall asleep now, my darling

I'm Just Waiting

I’m Just Waiting

Ten minutes to spill my heart onto this paper
To spill the emotions inside outward
Their myriad of colors each highlighting
Yet another passionate decree of, “I miss you.”

The red of my blood leaking onto the ground
It’s love screaming for a chance to just stay
The black and blue marking my notes and
Bruising my hands as they long for a touch
Of something, something real.

What is real? This grey haze slides past my vision
As crimson consumes the green of summer.
The heat persists, its orange flames
Burning auburn tattoos into my skin
As I flail through the pouring waves of paperwork.

Yellow tears fall from my eyes,
Failing to hide the fear I feel so often.

I’m just waiting…
Waiting for the colors to change.

I’m just waiting…
Waiting to watch the leaves fall.

The blackness of night never leaves tranquility,
As I wait for the pure onrush of blazing white
To burn away all that I hold so dear and so false.

I’m just waiting…waiting…
Waiting to say how much I love you.

Sitting Here

Well, here I am sitting here in my dorm, facing the inevitable onrush of another week of classes. I'm sitting here with pounding bass and punctuating drums filling my headspace, trying to figure out my life. But I'm really not trying to figure out my life...I'm trying to live it. I'm sitting here looking at my desktop wallpaper, and wishing that she was here, or I was there, or any combination of the both.

It's 1 AM, and here I sit. It's been a day of laughs, food, and ridiculous times. Walking to walmart and making Jon order 35 dollars worth of taco bell for us because the drive-thru was closed. Yet I still sit here as I have many a night since I got here, thinking of home. And I'm not entirely sure that is ever a bad thing. I'm having fun here, yet I still want to be back home at times. Some may notice the common thread of many of these last few blogs, being in some way all connected to me missing andraya and home. But the way I figure it, it's healthy to miss people you love...it's the way God longs for us to be reunited with Him.

So I'll throw on iTunes and listen to Yellowcard some more, and think about when I'll see you again. Or should I say see "You" again, or maybe for the very first time? Or quite possibly I mean both of you(You)? Maybe I'm just rambling at this point, yet it has some purpose. I'll let my emotion bleed onto this page, and it bleeds just like everyone else. Emotion is something that is an unique enigma in this world, and can sometimes rage out of control...but when it shows the many facets of its beauty it is quite a sight to behold.

Girls...More Girls...One Girl

Well today marked the first practice of the freshman frisbee tournament hopeful's "Carl's Heroes". This also meant the first meeting of the three girls on our team, Emma, Sarah, and Kelsey. Firstly, I was actually surprised that they came to practice with us, and they also were quite decent which made me very excited for our chances tomorrow...or should I say later today?

Today also marked our first intervis experience! (insert shocked and crazed face here) We actually set foot inside the girl halls!! Yeah, its really not that big of a deal...actually it was sorta boring. A couple things I realized however. One: girls dorms are so much better decorated than guys dorms. The room we went in was really cool, had a ton of pictures everywhere, and just had a cool ambience. This stands in stark contrast with our hall at Hicks, where I am the sole possessor of the most pictures on the hall and I only have 12. Two: it's still akward meeting new girls in college, even if they aren't drop-dead gorgeous and you aren't even seeking a relationship at all. It's so weird, because in high school I knew a ton of girls, and I was used to how easy it was to hang out with them and talk, and I feel like I'm in junior high all over again here. Well, it's not that bad, because I smell a whole lot better and am a little more mature anyway. Three: just like high school, there is some kind of social hierarchy depending on if you talk to girls, and have multiple friends that are girls...oh yeah, more points if they are attractive too (actually that often offers the most points). It's really quite horrible, yet I still manage sometimes to get sucked into it, which makes me sad sometimes. I mean, I would like to have friends that are girls in college, because I love the perspective of girls, and they bring so many great qualities to the table that guys simply lack. But I never want to have friends that are girls simply so I won't be considered a loser...that defeats the whole purpose. Girls aren't there so that us guys can be friends with them and then brag how many "hot" girls are our friends. That's just not the way it should work. Girls are human beings, not things to measure your status in society by, please treat them like people.

"If I could find you now things would get better, we could leave this town and run forever, I know somewhere somehow we'll be together."-Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard

And in all of this crazy talk about girls, there is one who I love. And my social status may take a hit in college because I'm not chasing after any hot girl I see, but that's fine with me. Why should I give up the one thing I'm more certain about than nearly anything else in my life for a mere 4 year popularity contest? I'll let you answer that one, and I'm guessing you know the answer. So, for the next four years, I plan on making a few good female friends, but you won't see me in the pimp category anytime soon. Those days are long over, and I hope to God they always will be. Someone else can take that title, and I'm fine with that...because one beautiful girl is better than a thousand hot ones. And I've found mine...so don't assume because I'm not chasing girls in college doesn't mean I can't, it simply means there are more important things to me than that. A lot more important. Love you. (and you know who you are)