God and Leather Saved My Hide

Fun fact: I took my new longboard down a hill that is much too large for it and ended up getting bucked off because of the wobbling from my massive speed. Luckily, I was wearing my leather jacket, because I ended up sliding for like 5-7 feet on my stomach and only came out with a little scratch on my palm and loss of breath for a minute or so. If I hadn't remembered my leather, I would've been thrashed. That's something to be thankful for. Overall it was a humbling and exciting experience.

I took a longboard trip to Seaside today with a few other people from school. I ran into a student in the parking lot and we were riding eachother's longboards around when he mentioned that Kevin, his RA was going to Seaside to longboard, so we hopped in my car to go join them. I thought it was going to be a good mixture of students and staff, but turns out the guy I brought was the only student there. Still, it felt good to actually go do something with a student for a change, because that's been a hard barrier to get around for me. However, after today I can see myself making more trips to Seaside for longboarding, because lots of students have longboards - and they're even students I enjoy being around. Sweet deal.

Also: Perhaps some direction for this summer, there's a possiblity I might join the Ecola Event Team where we travel around the country to different concerts/events and set up an Ecola booth to try to get new students. This may just be the traveling I've been longing for, while also doing ministry at the same time. Sure, I can't stand "Christian music," but I think I could get past that.

Boise is still a very high possibility for next year.

ps. This marks my 50th post on this blog!

[Note to Self] Display Problems

Disregard this, I just had this problem again and couldn't remember how to fix it. It has nothing to do with anyone else but myself, I just needed a safe place where I'd be able to find it again.

When your display won't show the full resolution, the fix is very simple:

1. Make sure drivers are installed
2. Restart computer
3. When the computer starts to boot, immediately unplug the monitor from the back
4. Unplug the monitor from power
5. Wait until the first log-in noise sound
6. Login (Right arrow, enter, password, enter)
7. Wait until the second log-in noise sound
8. Plug monitor into power
9. Plug monitor into computer
10. Change resolution

And Then I Realized...

...I'm the one that's doing alright after all.

Reunion Weekend

This weekend at Ecola is reunion weekend. I was excited, but I don't remember why because it's probably the most unnerving thing I've gone through in a while.

Recently in our intern classes, we took the DISC test to find out our personality types. I scored a high C which is on the passive/task-oriented side of the spectrum and which makes a lot of sense. Generally people like this get worn out and stressed and can't work when there are a lot of people around. This is very true for me. The whole night last night I sat in the sound booth and didn't leave that comfort bubble until I finally did leave and go sit behind the merchandise table with people I knew, casually greeting some people who would walk up. It's weird because I've always been this way, but didn't really know why or take notice of it in the way I'm doing now.

Before this weekend I felt pretty distant toward the rest of this year's student body, and with the reunion coming up, I was looking forward to seeing a lot of people I was close to. Turns out I wasn't really close to anyone. As far as friends go, I tend to find a few and stick with those few all the time. I have a lot of acquaintances who I find pleasant, but very few people I actually feel comfortable around, and most everyone at this reunion is an acquaintance and if they're a little more than an acquaintance, there's always someone else that they know better that they're going to be hanging out with anyway. This leaves me in a strange limbo of familiarity and insecurity and I find that when one of this year's students walks in the door, someone who I would normally feel distant from, I practically breath a sigh of relief that there's a few more degrees of comfort added to the room.

Overall, this weekend more than anything, is drawing me closer to this year's class in a strange psychological way that I totally didn't expect and which will be for the better.

Verbal Intimacy

I was thinking the other day, the steps of verbal intimacy to anyone around you or, the order in which we get to know each other.

Application: College-age people. Go to the next step when current topic starts lacking new material. (I believe the order of this wouldn't always apply to the elderly and younger children. With middle -aged people I think it might be similar, but maybe future not being as high up on the list.)

1. The basics - Age, where you're from, what food you like; Icebreakers.
2. The past - How life has gone in recent or distant past; A background.
3. The future - What is life going to look like next summer, next year.
4. The daily - How yesterday or last weekend went, how your day is going.
5. The mutual past - Reminiscing on memories together, inside jokes.

It could go further than this, I had originally had it to three steps, but recently changed it to these five. It might call for revision later.

An update on my daily:
Last weekend I got to go snowboarding for the first time in two years. It was just the best and I was completely exhausted afterward. I really felt like I was 'getting away,' which I desperately needed - I haven't felt that in so long. New requirement for wife: she must snowboard with me.

An update on my future:
As of now, I'm seriously considering moving to Boise and working at a library. Boise because Kurtis and his friend Alex are planning on getting an apartment there. Library because I think it would be really cool to put books away all day. All that sorting and finding, not to mention the countless book covers you'd be exposed to - it would totally broaden your horizons of what people are reading.

People's Lives

Oh what it would be to know the ins and outs and deep mysteries of our fellow man. So many people are going through so many different things and I see little hints of what's going on, like passing by in a car and seeing the trim on somebody's house through all the foliage out front and then forgetting about it. I wish I could stop at each house and get the grand tour, but right now I'm just in too big of a hurry to get to where I'm going, as if I'm late for something. But then again, I don't even know where I'm going and what I'm late for, so what keeps me from stopping at these houses and getting a tour? Why can't I avert my eyes from the road ahead of me...

There's so much life everywhere that we're all unaware of. The complexities of you are only the beginning of the complexities of life around you but most of the time, we don't realize, and I would venture to say - don't believe - that anyone exists but ourselves. By example, try to think of what someone is doing right now who's not in the same room as you - it seems so weird and unnatural that people are existing everywhere outside of the context of you.

Enter the problem: We don't care. There are some people, a very limited selection that have found that they do care - These people are the light of the world that Jesus talks about in Matthew 5. Why is it so hard for the rest of us? I deeply desire to have this desire for real, but in the mean time, I'll just fake it because I think it must be better than not caring at all.

Speaking of people, check out Little People.

Anticipation

Well I let that whiny post sit at the top for too long. About time to drown it in something positive.

I am so excited to go back to Ecola. I like to make myself even more excited just for the sake of being excited about something again - But then again, I don't really have to, because I'm way too overly excited in the first place. I'll head over there tomorrow instead of waiting until Sunday. I'm coming home!

I think I might want to move to the desert later. There's a certain solitude I find in the desert, I think it might be good. We drove through a little town in California called Borrego Springs where you can just pull off the road and go drive around in the brush and sand and dirt anywhere you want to. It's completely surrounded by a national park and allows you to camp anywhere within it, so it's all just open to go explore. That would be just the greatest. I'm looking forward to see what I'm going to do next summer and next year.

Meanwhile, I just bought an R4 for my Nintendo DS which allows you to load DS games in the form of roms onto it, so I can now have this huge library of games. Games I never thought I would enjoy: Space Invaders Extreme. Seriously, if you have a DS, you need to get this game - even if you don't particularily like Space Invaders - I didn't until I tried this.

Had a good drive around in the snow tonight, icey roads and whatnot. The Land Rover is still as good as ever. As we were heading home, the two cars ahead of me started sliding and swerving all over this steep hill we have to get up, so I pulled off the side a bit incase they started sliding down the hill toward me and I had no problem starting again on that slippery hill from an almost-stop when I saw them finally slide their way over the top. Power and control like that feels great.