Mick - Re: no subject

An Introduction to Ambient

2009-10-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is a list of good essentials (imo) and starters into different styles of Ambient music. Some I may have made up or may not be in the right categories. I do what I can.

You will like this if your name is Andee.

Minimal:
Minimal ambient music is the roots of ambient music and many consider Brian Eno to be the father of ambient music. It's a definitely a good starting place. Minimal is relaxing and contemplative - book reading music, perhaps, sleep is good too.

Artists include:
- Brian Eno
- Stars Of The Lid
- The Dead Texan

Download sample pack: here

Neo-Classical:
It's exactly what it sounds like - New classical music. Usually piano-centric; very atmospheric and nostalgic. I enjoy Neo-classical the most on rainy afternoons or early in the morning.

Artists include:
- Ludovico Einaudi
- Johann Johannsson
- Worrytrain

Download sample pack: here

Ambient Acoustic:
Warm acoustic guitars sets a good mood for anything. Road-trips through the desert, formal dinners, sitting by a fire in a snowy log cabin, or just relaxing on the grass.

Artists include:
- Sumner McKane
- Kaki King
- James Blackshaw

Download sample pack: here

Ambient Lo-Fi:
Often giving off a creepy vibe, but wonderful once you get to know it. Ancient rituals, old dusty houses, and crackling, worn-out recording equipment.

Artists include:
- Natural Snow Buildings
- Pocahaunted
- Grouper

Download sample pack: here

Ambient Post-Rock:
If you're unfamiliar with post-rock, it's a usually-instrumental style of music for using rock instruments in a very non-rock kind of way. Songs are usually long, don't follow a normal rule of verse-chorus usage, and end up being pretty epic. Translate that to ambient music and it's quite something to behold.

Artists include:
- The American Dollar
- Hammock
- Jesu

Download sample pack: here

Ambient Electronic:
Electronic beats and stylings that usually end up sounding pretty romantic. For lonely nights staring out the window, heartaches; For distant city lights; For holding hands, and making out.

Artists include:
- port-royal
- Lights Out Asia
- The Album Leaf

Download sample pack: here

Minimal Techno:
Pretty self-explanatory, but very hard to imagine if you've never heard it before. Music for relaxing with friends, music for late-night drives, music for cleaning your room. If you're not a fan of "techno" and related genres, it's still worth checking out - It's not very similar.

Artists include:
- Evan Marc & Steve Hillage
- The Field
- Loscil

Download sample pack: here

Space Music:
Exactly what it sounds like. Music for dreaming of being in space, for stargazing, for falling asleep. So infinitely pleasant if you're in love with space.

Artists include:
- Jonn Serrie
- Steve Roach
- Seetyca

Download sample pack: N/A

Drone:
Drone, light drone, and dark drone are all really the same thing, but with different moods. Drone is a very good word to describe it, because that's what it is - Long, droning tones, wavering wavelengths, and big soundscapes. It may sound boring, but once you start, you cannot stop. I like to think it adds an extra layer of silence. You'll see what I mean.

Artists include:
- Aidan Baker
- Windy & Carl
- Eluvium

Download sample pack: N/A

Light Drone:
Drone with a lighter, innocent flavor. Usually the stuff you want to fall asleep to. Sometimes good romantic dinner music, or late-night snugglings and smoochies as well.

Artists include:
- Slow Dancing Society
- Northern
- Stephen Philips

Download sample pack: N/A

Dark Drone:
Drone with a sinister, evil flavor. Stuff to creep yourself out, to make you feel like a villian, or to just satisfy your craving for something... dark. Not for little girls.

Artists include:
- Lustmord
- Vrodhgr
- Rosetta (B-Sides)

Download sample pack: N/A

Drone Metal:
Distortion off the charts, dense walls of sound, slow brooding drums, drowning out vocals, thoughts, and melting your skin off. Nothing has ever been so brutally lovely.

Artists include:
- Nadja
- The Angelic Process

Download sample pack: N/A

Doom Metal:
Candles go out, eyes cry blood, livestock dies, hoods are donned, stormclouds hide the sun, a swarm of locusts descends, the wind howls. Prepare for the darkest hour.

Artists include:
- Sunn O)))
- The Mt. Fuji Doomjazz Corporation
- Omega Massif

Download sample pack: N/A

How Not To Live In The Forest

2009-09-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I can go the rest of my life not living on the Olympic Peninsula. I long for it even now.

It's Good To Be Single

2009-04-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

It suddenly dawned on me.

Doing what you want, when you want! Spending your spare money on fun things! Not having to worry if your breath stinks!

Video games, longboarding, and peeing with the door open; Good times await!

\o/

Good Things

2009-04-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

...take a lot of work.

Sometimes the work'sn't worth it.

Tonight, my hair's soft...

[俳句]

(Social Oddities) Pt. 1 of ?

2009-04-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

The Social Oddity of Not Being Able To Say No:

In our culture it has kind of become impossible to oppose anyone by saying no to requests or by asking someone to change what they're doing if you're aiming to be polite. It practically defeats the purpose of asking someone a yes or no question in some cases, but would be altogether more rude if you didn't give them the option at all in some more cases. All of this can be avoided if you're someone who doesn't care if you're rude or not.

Example 1:
You're in class and whoever is speaking asks if the crowd minds if they talk and extra 5 minutes into your lunch time. Since it would be rude for anyone to say "No, I'd really like to get to lunch on time," the speaker only hears the random one or two people who yell "Yeah, go ahead!"

Example 2:
You've made plans to hang out with a friend later and are going to his place to watch a movie and play some games. When a second friend asks if he or she can come as well, you would be rude to deny them, but you tell them it's not up to you because it's not at your house, so you proceed to call your first friend and ask if your second friend can come with you. Naturally, since the host really doesn't have any solid excuse not to let your second friend come, he would be obliged to say yes, even if he didn't really like the second friend or would rather just have you over.

Example 3:
You're in a car with some friends, not good friends, but people you're comfortable around. Someone puts on some music that you don't really like. It's not that it's bad music or that it's particularly obnoxious, it's just really mediocre (See The Killers). You can't just ask them to turn it off because you don't like it without sounding rude.

Why Hardcore Techno Is Good For Me

2009-04-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

The secret to a good, long run is Hardcore Techno (&/or Gabber). Some time ago I may have decided that it was Drum and Bass, but that is no longer so. Drum and Bass is good, but it often makes you run at a pace that wears you out quickly and the pace often switched from too slow to too fast too often. This is not so with Hardcore Techno - I've just been running the past couple days to a compilation called Masters of Hardcore: Chapter XXVI and it just keeps me going and keeps me pumped like nothing I've ever run to before. I can close my eyes and get lost in the music and don't really feel tired until I stop - it's like it compels me to dance but instead I put that energy into running. The only thing keeping me from going longer is my feet get numb because I don't have running shoes.

I've decided I'd like to produce some myself, and also start a netlabel for it. It would be called Granite Breaker Records (GBR -> Gabber ;D) and it would slay. We will see how this pans out. Must acquire Reason... I'm not sure if Ableton is the right tool for this.

--- Unrelated notes ---

Anyway... I'm on track for finishing my assigned Bible reading this year, so that's something. In order to finish on time I must read about 12 chapters a day, which takes me about 45 minutes depending on what book I'm in. It's kind of burdensome, but it's getting me into the Bible every day, which can only lead to good. My roommate Jon is also determined to finish, but he's so far behind he has to read 28 chapters a day - I've been really impressed though, the past three days he's been keeping up and making it a priority.

I also found out a few weeks ago that I'm on the Ecola Festival Team this summer. That means I get to spend my summer doing something I hate - Listen to Christian music. I can bear it though, because it enables me to a) Take a road trip b) See the Eastern side of the U.S. c) Promote Ecola d) Hang out with the other cool people on the team, and e) Not get a job. I'm looking forward to this so much!

Lots of exciting interaction with ladies in my near future. My good friend (and ideal older sister) Rachel is coming to visit tomorrow which I am STOKED about. She's like me but in older girl form and more fun to be around. Then on Easter weekend I get to go visit my friend Maddie (who I interact with mostly by sending/receiving mix CDs to/from - we haven't actually talked in person that much...) and see Noah Gundersen, the best folk artist from this side of America. I'm not usually this lady-oriented, it's scary.

The Far Cry 2 map editor is the best thing since the Tribes 2 map editor.

That is all, hopefully some more serious or insightful things sooner/later.

3rd Term Is Upon Us

2009-03-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

No updates for a long time... well. Been busy and stuff.

First order of business, just got back from Mexico, we went down there this spring break to help out with construction on Baja Bible School, which is going to be super awesome when it starts this fall. If I wasn't already two-years deep in Bible School I'd sign up right away. I would write a ton about my experience but it's late and I need to get up early tomorrow.

Second, third term of Ecola is starting as of today and for that, I am stoked. I'm really ready to be done with this place - it's good, but it's time to leave the greenhouse. Less than seven weeks to go!

I guess this isn't much of an update, I'll try to get on that this week sometime.

Tearing Sutures Out

2009-02-18T23:50:00.000-08:00

But he somehow keeps smiling in spite all of that,
While I keep finding ways to push the good out for the bad
Oh, how selfish of myself to always say that it was more than I could take,
Like it was pain I could not shake,
Like it could break me with it's fingers, throw my body in the lake,
And I would slowly sink away
But the Truth is it was sorrow that I made and would not face.
See, I keep falling for the future after tripping on the past.
And I am always tearing sutures out to make the anguish last like it defines me.
Or reminds me I've found comfort in my suffering
And uncertainty in happiness and death,
Because what's next is such a mystery to me.
I am terrified of all the things I feel but cannot see.
--La Dispute, The Last Lost Continent

So often in life this defines me. No, not at the moment, at the moment I'm doing fine. I was just reading over these lyrics tonight and realized how accurate this was to my life. When I get depressed or down, I find myself staying that way just for the sake of staying that way, like it brings some sort of twisted comfort to me. It just comes so naturally and I don't really know what to think of it.

Being 'down' also comes very naturally to me. I remember a few weeks ago, one of our teachers told us to come to class depressed to get into the right mood for Ecclesiastes, his topic for our class. I was like, "I could totally do that," because I think I usually just default to that. Like, staying optimistic is like holding onto a rope ladder, and all I have to do is let go and fall backwards to walk around with an ornery look on my face, not feel like being around people, and see everything pessimistically. Even during good times where I'm generally bright and cheery, I can put myself in this mode almost instantly.

But really, I'm not letting go of that rope ladder very often. Things are alright. I need to update more.

Worship: Wrong (Rewrite)

2009-02-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

I think I got it right this time... I hope so. This is something very important to me, and I hope I've articulated it correctly.

I've got a problem with our current state of doing 'worship' as a church through music. Let me count the ways:

It's too easy. The very first instance we see the word worship being used in the bible is when Abraham gives the ultimate sacrifice, a foreshadowing of what God would do for us later. He says "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Gen 22:5). There's something to be said about this, and to me, it's that worship often takes sacrifice on our parts. Giving of our time or possessions, serving others, being outside of our comfort zone. Many other examples in the Bible where the word worship is used is often in context of God appearing and men falling on their faces in His presence.
We worship in the wrong tense and perspective. Almost always throughout the Bible, we see Israel praising God for things he's done, all throughout the old testament and through the psalms. Worship is always in present or past tense, after God has done something great. I'm not saying we shouldn't have hope for the things God is going to do, but we can't know what those things are. We often say things along the lines of "following all of our days," or, "less of me, more of you." These are also examples of focusing on what we'll do for God instead of what He's done for us as well as promises we can't keep - after all, we know that we are only capable of following God as it was His grace that has saved us, nothing of our doing. "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6). So it's good to have hope that we'll be kept in His grace, but as far as our worship goes, I think we should both be focusing on Him, not making promises, and focusing ourselves on things He's already done for us.
It lacks creativity. Honestly, I don't think I should have to turn to secular music to find anything innovative. We are definitely failing to display God's attribute of creativity in our music, using the same simple formula over and over again. If we're writing music for God, the best audience we can have, why are we not creating masterpieces, why have we created so many cliches for ourselves, and why does all our music sound so similar? Granted, there are a few Christians who really do create innovative music that is even recognized by secular critics as great (Sufjan, Danielson, Various Metalcore bands), but as a whole, the entirety of our "Christian Genre" lacks any effort to break the mold.
It's being used for profit. This part disgusts me outright - read this:
WorshipMusic.com offers one of the best values in Christian music. Our mission is simple: to increase worship on the earth! Make us your one-stop store for worship & praise music by Vineyard, Integrity Music, Maranatha, Worship Together, Hosanna!, Kingsway, Passion/sixsteps, Hillsongs, Brentwood Benson and quality independent & import worship music.
If nothing else is taken from this blog post, I hope that this would. I don't get passionate about a lot of things, but this just boils my blood. The fact that we're copyrighting and selling our words that are supposed to be for God is unbelievable to me, and honestly, I recognize it as outright sin. You can't serve the world and God at the same time: You can't write music to make money from, and write music acceptable to God at the same time. You just can't. An interaction between you and God should be between you and God. What if you started selling personal letters between you and your girlfriend? Think of even moreso how much of an offense that is when you're doing the same thing with your creator.
It's replacing true worship. When I say the word "worship" the first thing that will come to mind is probably singing. I think this is very weird. Whether it's been intended or not, our whole mindset of what worship is is now defined by the act of singing. Is that seriously all we're gonna give? Granted, I know lots of Christians spend lots of time serving and worshipping in many other ways, but why don't we ever define feeding the homeless as worship, or painting someone's house, or sharing what God has done in our lives, or trusting God instead of worrying about something. None of this is considered worship, and if I were to tell someone that I don't enjoy going to church and singing, I would probably be accused of (or atleast thought of as) someone who doesn't worship God.

Honestly, there are countless ways to worship God, and singing is just a very small part. I believe a big part of why Christianity in America is so weak today is that people have the mindset that the only thing worshipping God requires is 20 minutes of singing every sunday and that they're good for the rest of the week. No, worshipping God is much more than that, and it's an act we should be doing every day. Simply, giving the glory to God - whatever that may look like. I can't tell you what that's going to look like in our own life, that's up to you and God. I would suggest it as a topic of prayer perhaps? You might be surprised.

My roommate Kurtis suggested something cool the other day. What if instead of sitting around singing along to some familiar and overplayed song, everyone got an instrument and literally just made a joyful noise, singing out thanks to God. Even if you can't play an instrument, most of us can bang on stuff or sing to some extent, and while it may not sound the best, the whole group would be expressing themselves the best they could, with words from their own mouths and sounds from their own hands. I can only imagine a scene like that to be a sweet aroma rising up to God.

More good insights on this topic from Kurtis. We share mostly the same view - he articulates a few things better than I, as well as a different perspective. Definitely check it out. @ Integral Truth.

Worship: Wrong

2009-02-04T23:31:00.000-08:00

Hello controversy.

(I need to rewrite this, it's messy and doesn't convey anything in particular clearly enough)

I have a big problem with musical worship. It's just sort of slowly evolved over the years, starting with feeling inadequate because I didn't feel the need to raise my hands during worship and thought I might arrive at some higher level of understanding that would all of a sudden make me want to start raising my hands. I later started realizing this to be a lie. Then I started noticing a trend at how much "worship" is focused on ourselves and not on God and a big "Here I am to worship" mentality, often lying to God through song with words like "You're all I want" when, humanly, there are hundreds/thousands of other things we want all the time. We sing to God empty promises about giving our whole lives to Him, yet go on living for ourselves. Many songs contain lyrics that are personal and meaningful for the writer of the song, but the rest of us have to cut strange puzzle pieces to fit our experiences into these songs. I really started analyzing the things being sung instead of just singing them and came to the conclusion: We're doing it wrong.

This was fine for a while, I thought maybe we just needed to write more God-centered music and looked to hymns. Hymns are better lyrically, there's no doubt. They lack cheesiness and for the most part, focus on God's character and things he's done and altogether just contain more universal truths. They satisfied me at first, but now I'm weary of them as well. I'm weary of merely singing to God and calling it worship. I'm disgusted that the term worship now means "singing Christian songs together" instead of "giving glory to God in any situation." We have designated times of worship - 20 minutes, five songs, three times a week. Seriously? I thought this was a lifestyle. I thought this could manifest itself in countless different ways. I thought it was about trying to offer a worthy sacrifice... how does singing for a few minutes require any sacrifice at all on your part?

Worship has become an industry, and this is the most sickening part. Read this excerpt from WorshipMusic.com, it speaks for itself:

WorshipMusic.com offers one of the best values in Christian music. Our mission is simple: to increase worship on the earth! Make us your one-stop store for worship & praise music by Vineyard, Integrity Music, Maranatha, Worship Together, Hosanna!, Kingsway, Passion/sixsteps, Hillsongs, Brentwood Benson and quality independent & import worship music.

This is disgusting. Just the fact that worship songs are copyrighted is outrageous. On top of that they're being sold. Praises to God are being sold.

I can understand people who make praise music need money to live on. Get a job. If a (secular) musician from, say Magic Bullet Records has a passion for music, he puts his soul into it and creates an original masterpiece, then makes creative and personal packaging for it (often hand-made), and then sells it for $8 or less to barely cover the cost of it and gets his money from his day job, not his creative output and passion. Why then, can a Christian musician use the same over-used four chords that every other Christian musician uses, maybe remake some cliche praise songs in their own "style," put a pretty picture of them self on the cover of their album, and sell it for $15? The secular big-name recording industry is disgusting enough doing the same thing, but as Christians? Why are we following the example of the corporate money-grubbing recording industry instead of maybe... not making a profit on their "songs to God?"

That brings me to another point - Why is Christian music so un-innovative all the time? Why is it so cheesy? Why does it have to sound the same and why is it its own genre? Why do I have to turn to secular music to hear something creative and heartfelt? If our audience is God, shouldn't we be the ones that are leading in musical innovation instead of being decades behind? Isn't God worthy of a "new song" like we always sing about? Why do we keep putting out the same old thing?

Now, a few disclaimers:

Worship is very important. Very. I just don't think we're doing it right.
There are some Christian musicians who are actually innovative - see Danielson and Sufjan - people that are more popular in secular society even than in Christian circles.
We see singing praises as a model in the Bible with Psalms and a few other places. Note this is a very small part of worship and I would say, not required at all (We don't even see Jesus singing in the gospels). If you want to add a bit of singing to your worship - that's great. More often than not, we see people adding a bit of worship to their singing, though.

I'd like to people stop calling "singing praises" worship and start thinking a bit broader. How can you worship God the best? It's different for everyone and different all the time, so I can't tell you. Maybe step out of your comfort zone to do something the Holy Spirit's been convicting you of for a while? Maybe ask someone how they've been blessed that day and then sharing how you've been blessed? Praying for someone? Admiring God's creation? Giving up a prized possession in order to help someone else out? Hey, maybe at some moment you can worship God the best just by singing to Him. There's definitely a time for that for many people - don't let it drown out all the other times, and please, stop calling it worship.

Note: This might be messy and hard to read, I'll have to go over it again tomorrow and maybe rewrite some of it, I'm quite tired. Enjoy.

God and Leather Saved My Hide

2009-01-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-19T20:20:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-01-18T10:41:00.000-08:00

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

Reunion Weekend

2009-01-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

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.)

The basics - Age, where you're from, what food you like; Icebreakers.
The past - How life has gone in recent or distant past; A background.
The future - What is life going to look like next summer, next year.
The daily - How yesterday or last weekend went, how your day is going.
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

2009-01-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

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.

The Worst Part

2008-12-31T01:30:00.000-08:00

It just came to me, the worst part of the break-up... I couldn't put my finger on it 'til just now.

Knowing she's completely fine without you and has seemingly forgotten your existence, remaining the same before, during, and after she met you - you leaving no footprint in her life, your entire time together meaning nothing in the end. And you, being left a pitiful wreck after she's come and gone, self-hating and weak, thinking you were much stronger in the face of adversity.

And they call it being dumped. I now realize how accurate of a verb that is.

[/emo]

Sorry. Late nights do no good for me anymore.jy5wutitrshhjtr

I know where my comfort lies, I just can't grasp it right now.

Soundtrack To My Life: 2008

2008-12-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

January: Dälek - Speak Volumes
I remember specifically driving home for Christmas break and listening to a mixtape DKDustinK of AfterThePostRock sent me in a mixtape trade. We had to take 101 home because 30 was closed. I, at that moment, realized that all hip-hop was not bad. It carried on through December 07 into January 08 and marked me getting interested in underground hip-hop for the first time.

February: Readymade - Nov30
I started getting into an awkward involvement with a girl in February. Readymade set the right melancholy tone for that, because I was a bit devastated. I learned a lot about girls and awkward situations in my school year of 07-08, and this would mark the most awkward of all. Walking around the back-streets of Cannon Beach listening to Readymade helped turn me into the emotional zombie that I became for a while.

March: M83 - Teen Angst
I remember getting a very hyped-up vibe from M83 for a long time before ever hearing them. This was the first track I heard from them and I was simply blown away which led me to a short but intense obsession with the band. The title also reflects my continued "teen angst" from my fails with women.

April: Atmosphere - Like The Rest of Us
I chose this track because it paints a very vivid picture of a night when I rode my little $5 kids bike around Cannon Beach and listened to this whole album. It was kinda monumental to me - this is not my favorite track on that album but represents that night very distinctively to me. April was a time of healing.

May: Windy & Carl - Sketch For Flea
Right after graduating Ecola, I went straight to my dad's house in San Diego. I suddenly had multiple meaningless crushes going on, but it was a cool time despite that. I started getting into drone, and this was the track that started it all. It also represents a time of escape and relaxation, as well as self-confrontation. The atmospheric architecture of Windy & Carl put me in a good mood late at night.

June: Bersarin Quartett - Mehr als alles andere
In June I drove to camp to be a counselor for the summer. Everyone hit it off really well, really fast, giving our great summer an ever greater start. Within a week I already had a super intense crush on Elyse and one of my greatest downfalls started setting in - Envy. Despite the warm June weather, the struggle I was going through made me feel cold - the same atmosphere this song portrays to me.

July: Fang Island - We Were Lions
I used this song once at an end-of-the-week slideshow, and overall, it is the perfect song for my July. Just lots of fun with my kids at camp, enjoying myself thoroughly and growing and maturing exponentially. To wrap it up at the end of July, Elyse and I confess our "like" for one another on a starry night. High-fives all around.

August: Snow Patrol - Set The Fire To The Third Bar
The beginning of August was difficult, I was at a family reunion in Iowa and Elyse was hundreds of miles away. I wrote her a letter with the lyrics to this song in it. Even when I got back, we had to be distant because we weren't really allowed to be "in relationships" around the kids. Camp ended and we both stayed in Stanwood and we finally "made it official."

September: Airiel - Sugar Crystals
September was a joyful time with Elyse, she stayed at my house and we did absolutely everything together. This song paints the mood of this month perfectly, just loving every minute of it. I went back to Cannon Beach half way through and had a blast with my intern family. Leaving her was hard, but I was in good company. My first kiss was also had this month. Sugar Crystals.

October: Halou - I'll Carry You
Lots of "missing each other" and love love love going around. Just lots of intense longing and feeling very loved this month. I substituted my beloved Halloween to drive home and visit my beloved Elyse. This song represents the mood of this month perfectly.

November: Bloc Party - Signs
Ended my Halloween weekend with our relationship totally derailed and going nowhere good. Pulling my hair out in anxiety and frustration and cluelessness until it finally kicked the bucket a week before Thanksgiving. This song becoming my break-up song due to it being one we both enjoyed and also it being very sad. I realize it's about somebody dying, but I just took it figuratively instead of literally.

December: Aidan Baker - Survival
This month marks the most severe apathy about my life I've ever experienced. Some people would probably call it depression, I don't really know though. The mood and title of this song paint my life, getting lost in the droning riffs of Aidan Baker and I'm merely surviving right now. The end of December leaves me with a small aftertaste of hope in my mouth and optimism for the future.

Download Link will be available if anyone shows any interest. I don't really feel like putting a link up if it won't get used... although I might just for kicks.

Purposelessness

2008-12-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

I was reading back into my old posts doing research for my "Soundtrack of my life: 2008" (Coming Soon!) and I realized from a post back in September that I was feeling purposeless and thought it would change when I started Ecola and had stuff to do. Nope, feeling as purposeless as ever... well, maybe not, useless is a better word. I'm becoming more optimistic about the future daily, but it's interesting that my feeling of being useless has remained this long and I thought it was just a recent thing. I wonder what other trends seem recent but have been there for a while...

What 'Emotional High' Means To Me (Reprise)

2008-12-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

I discussed this with my dad a little bit today - some clarity and expansion was had.

Let's use an illustration, let's also say this illustration may or may not have had significance to me recently. A girl and a guy in a young relationship find they can tolerate each other to the point of saying "I Love You" for their first times (awww). I find that as a man saying that, I am less likely to talk about 'how I'm feeling' at any given moment so that when I tell a girl I love her, I have thought it through and decided that a) Up to this point in time, I've had not much problem with this girl and b) At this point in time, I really dig this girl and c) I could see myself spending some good time with this girl in the future. This is putting it casually, of course, I'm feeling a lot more passionate about all this. So in saying "I love you," I'm genuinely accepting this girl into my life - my whole life. This is affected in part by my how I'm feeling at the moment emotions, but since talking about how I'm feeling at the moment isn't a normal thing for me, when I'm asked about how I'm feeling, I'm talking about my large chapter, stage, movement in life. I could have been feeling pretty down the past few hours, but if a friend asks how I'm doing and I'm at an exciting time in life where things are going pretty well, I'm going to be talking about that, rather than my stress the past few hours at work.

Disclaimer: I'm not a girl and don't know how they work. If I were look at it from the female perspective though, and based on what little personal experience I have in this, I would say that this is flipped. If a girl says the same thing to her dude, she's saying "I love you right now" moreso than she's saying "everything you've done up to this point and what you're probably going to do in the future makes me love you." Girls are more likely to be talking to others about how they're feeling at the moment than guys, so when you ask them what they feel about something, they're most likely going to respond with how they're doing at that moment rather than the overall tone in their stage of life like a guy would. Now, opposite from a man, if a girl has been feeling kinda crappy the past few hours, but she's going through a pretty exciting time in her life otherwise, if asked about it she's going to tell you that she's not feeling so well because that's what's been going on earlier that evening.

And this is why we need to be careful with such things. We need to know where each is coming from because girls, if a guy tells you he loves you it's a super serious thing that he's thought through and is refering to a big picture. And guys, if you assume that girls think through this the same way you do, you might be taken aback later when you find that they were talking about that moment when they said it. Now please, don't take this as 'girls are untrustworthy and don't say what they mean' because I'm not saying that at all. I'm just trying to understand the differences in ways we communicate our affection (and I suppose this can be applied to many other areas of male/female communication as well). I'm also not saying that this is absolutely true - guys will sometimes react based on their hourly emotions, and girls will sometimes make decisions based on their stage of life, but I think more commonly, it goes the other way.

Like a Dove or, What 'Emotional High' Means to Me.

2008-12-27T00:47:00.000-08:00

I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest-
I would flee far away
and stay in the desert;
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and storm."

-David, Psalm 55:6-8 (NIV)

Totally, but I don't know what my place of shelter is. My Ecola family probably. I will be with them soon.

I hope there's not too much snow that I can't get home from the airport.

If an enemy was insulting me,
I could endure it;
if a foe were raising himself against me,
I could hide from him.
But it is you, [someone] like myself,
my companion, my close friend,
with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
as we walked with the throng at the house of God.

-David, Psalm 55:12-14 (NIV) [Paraphrased by me]

Girls - please know that you affect men much more deeply than you (or even they, at the time) can know. Make sure that if you say something, that it isn't just your emotions talking, but that you really mean it. You may think you mean it at the time, but don't say "I love you" until you've struggled through a hard part of your relationship where you didn't feel the love. If you can still say and mean it after that, go ahead.

A little tip: Guys generally say what they mean and don't get caught up in temporary emotion as much - this is true for me anyway (I might not know what I'm talking about, actually...). My emotions are long-lasting and all-encompassing and don't affect the things I say and do and mean because if I'm feeling a certain way, I'm generally going to be feeling that way for a very long time. As in, it's not an emotion to me, it's a large chapter of my life. I would say I'm very affected by emotion, but I probably wouldn't define emotion the same way as I would in a female. I don't know if I'm making sense.

If a guy (I mean a good-intentioned guy who does have your best interest in mind; use discretion) says he loves you and means it, he isn't going to change his mind when he stops feeling the love and justify it as "I was on an emotional high," because he wasn't. While guys do have emotional ups and downs, they mostly have long underlying emotional movements that last for large chunks of time and define stages of life (Again, call bs on this if it's wrong, because it could just be me). A man's actions are not based on his temporary hour-to-hour emotions so much as his overall 'stage of life' emotions.

All I'm saying is, girls, be very careful not to say or do things very heartfelt when you're on one of your emotional highs - guys don't experience these in the same way you do, and will just assume that you're going to be like them and say things because you mean them deeply - not just emotionally. Deeply examine your heart when the guy in question isn't around you and make sure you feel that way, and not just when you're close to eachother, cuddling, saying cute disgusting things, what have you.

Nyquil

2008-12-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

I give it an 8/10. It takes a while to start working.

Requirements for future wife: She must enjoy Underworld
Things I did for 7 hours today: Played Wii Ski
Artists with overrated releases in 2008: TV on the Radio, Portishead
Things that are 'alright' and start with C: Carmex, Cryosleep
My favorite way to tell people about things: This way

I started making short mad libs and posting them as Facebook notes. You should participate cause they're cool.

Good Things Are Ahead or, Why Don't You Drink?

2008-12-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

I know it. Things are looking up for ol' Mick Swanson. Maybe.

If you drink too much water, do you puke or just drown?

I was thinking tonight, if the question were posed to me: Why don't you drink? I would answer in a way like this:
Well, I'd like to say it's because I want to obey the law, but that would be a lie because I break the speed limit every time I drive and I really like trespassing on abandoned things. I'd also like to say it's because I just have no desire to, which would also be a lie because I've been dying to try Pumpkin Ale and apparently there's no such thing as "Virgin Pumpkin Ale," (We've looked.) I'd also like to say it's because I like to enjoy things as they are, but while that wouldn't totally be a lie, it's probably not the main reason I don't drink. I guess it's just one of those things that I've stood firm on regardless of what people around me are doing... and I also think drunk people are just about the stupidest, least funny, and least likely people I would want to spend my time with. This goes for other substance abuse as well.

Dash and Blast

2008-12-18T01:20:00.001-08:00

Why can't I just look at the world without all these memories attached to every little thing? Such blessings of memory and emotion can be such curses at times.

Spoiler: This is hypothetical. Sorry for being ambiguous.

Things I wonder:
-What would it be like to be a vampire?
-What would it be like to be insane?
-What would it be like to be able to walk on clouds?
-What would it be like to have a dinosaur?
-What would it be like to be in space?

There's noisy coyotes outside.

Hello 11:20

2008-12-16T23:20:00.000-08:00

Flew on a plane today - am in San Diego. There was one point where we were above the clouds and all I could see was miles and miles of cloud plains and cloud mountains far off. I was listening to Kaki King. It was amazing.

Then for my second flight I was listening to Neurosis. Very different, but also awesome.

I found myself not caring if the plane crashed or not, I really want to go home. I wish there weren't work left here to do so we could all go home. As noted by my "vitals" column over there, I'm in the midst of some severe apathy... about everything. I could care less about one thing or another, having fun doesn't sound fun anymore, I don't care about sleeping because I have to wake up again, I'm always down but don't want to be comforted. This has been slowly progressing for a while, I see myself as worthless despite what kinds of evidences I see, read or hear otherwise. I just don't know. It will go away. Time passes, God heals.

Unpopular Life Goals

2008-12-12T03:41:00.001-08:00

I have them. I don't really aspire to be anything. I don't want to go to college, I don't want a high-paying job. I would be content with making a little bit of money and living in a small apartment for a while. Seriously. I also want to do some couch surfing, celebrate ferret day every year, and find a wife eventually.

This comic is amazing and on-topic. If you don't read Dinosaur Comics already, get on it!

Blood!

2008-12-11T02:26:00.000-08:00

I gave blood for the second time in my life on Tuesday. It's a good experience, if you haven't done it, you should. The lady sitting by the snack table after I'd finished giving my blood said something (I don't remember what) that led me to the conclusion that giving blood is an easy way to be a good steward of your body. The whole thing takes like 15-25 minutes and you're helping to save people's lives (Or so they tell you...). There's really no reason not to unless you're physically unable, as most of us can just regenerate more very quickly and be back to complete normality within 48 hours. Plus, blood and the shedding of it is totally metal. The bus that came to the conference center was called The Bloodmobile. Brutal.

Brace Yourself

2008-12-08T22:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a quote for the old quote book:

"Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me."

-God (Job 38:8 (NIV))

And another of equal value:

"Do you give the horse his strength
or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?
Do you make him leap like a locust,
striking terror with his proud snorting?
...
At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, 'Aha!'"

-God (Job 39:19,20,25a (NIV))

I hope that turned you into a better person, I know it did for me.

Caring... Why? or, Why Girls Are Better Than I Thought

2008-12-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

It's very hard for me to care about people... I mean, I know I'm commanded to, and I want to, but I don't know how to make myself care.

Take, for example, let's say someone you don't really know is coming to visit. This guy knows your friends and so they're talking, but then let's say they have to go do something and so you're left to entertain this guy. He seems cool, you've talked a little bit with him about a new movie or video game. But when it comes down to asking him how he's doing or what's going on in his life, I could really care less. Has he just got a job promotion? Does he get to visit distant relatives in the near future? Has he just had a spiritual breakthrough? These are all things that are very important to a person and since we're striving to love as Christ loves, shouldn't it be important to us as well? The answer is obviously yes, but I don't know how to.

Something else I recently discussed was enjoying someone's presence when they're around, but not really minding or missing them at all when they're not there. I've found that I struggle with this a lot more than I'd admit, even with people really close to me. It's weird to think that people actually miss me when I'm not around because it's such a weird concept to me. If I'm not even so good as to care enough to miss someone, what would they see in me that would make them miss me? I don't feel like I'm that encouraging to people or that I go out of my way to show them they're important to me... or that I'm even especially useful or helpful to people.

Little things have been showing me that I do care a little bit - I'm getting better. Now that I think of it, there's been a lot of little things. To go into detail, the conversation was mostly about me struggling with not being able to see girls as good enough friends to want them around when they're not there. This has been proven false three times in the past 24 hours to me.
First, I woke up this morning and realized that I miss my friend Rachel from camp this summer - a lot more than I thought I did, so much so that I would even venture to say that being able to spend a few days with her would be one of the best things that could happen right now. She's like a big sister to me, and I feel closer to her than to my older step-sisters.
Second, my fellow interns Richell and Diana. I often shrug them off because they can be a little more girly or dramatic than I can handle at times. But they also have a very fun and caring side and I honestly do enjoy their company most of the time, it's just I was thinking that I didn't really mind not being in their company either. Wrong. Tonight a bunch of interns went out to dinner and it just didn't feel the same without them and I found myself wishing they were there. Strange.
Third, I find I'm missing my mom a lot as well. I just watched the movie AI tonight, and it's all about the robot child seeking love and acceptance from his mom and it made me appreciate my mom and miss her a lot.

Aside from those big three, a few more were brought to my mind. Amanda, for caring enough to read my blog and for providing a blog for me to read and learn from and even for stealing my "part 1 of ?" format, mimicry is flattery and all that. Also for being humble and forgiving for a strange misunderstanding we had last year. My cousin Michelle for just being rad and having a cool family - same with my other cousin Wendy and their mom, my aunt, LaVonne for just being weird and fun. The rest of the girls on intern and staff for being pleasant and great to work with.

Men are awesome, but women give birth to men so I must give credit where it is due. Women are truly better than I thought.

Rethinking, Reevaluating, Reviving, etc.

2008-12-05T00:11:00.000-08:00

This is a lot of what has been going through my mind in the past three or four days. Some of these topics will probably end up showing up again later.

Firstly, I'm rethinking rethinking college (That means I'm thinking about not going). I just don't see any point right now. I was considering architecture but it would require so much time, money and work and I don't even know if I would enjoy it. Thinking about what is actually in my future, couch surfing is looking more and more likely. I would love to take a year off and just travel the world couch surfing the whole way and putting my faith into practice... Like a mission trip, and a learning experience. I don't know how practical that is right now, I would need some money. Regarding money, I'm once again thinking that I really wouldn't mind making chump change and living on that. For one, I could live on little, I'm doing it now. For two, I would rather learn to be financially responsible with a small portion of money than with a large portion. Couch surfing is also looking super-appealing even if I do start going to college and even later in life. I'd love to have my home open to travelers - a constant flow of new people to meet and serve.

Something that's really hard for me is having to sit in on so many classes. Don't get me wrong, the classes are amazing, and that's why it's so hard. It seems like every week I'm getting convicted about something new that I never get an opportunity to put into practice before another week goes by and some more things are added to my pile of ways I need to change. The change seems impossible to me right now, like, I feel like I could never attain the things I'm convicted of because I'm too weak. It's overwhelming at times. The way I try to look at it is that God has got me thinking heavily on these things for a reason - At least I'm thinking about them now. What we have our mind focused on is what we eventually become, to some degree, and if I'm focusing on positive changes, it's only a matter of time before God shows me exactly how to change or slowly make the change in me without me really knowing. Like I posted about a while ago, "Love God, and do what you want," I shouldn't be worried about God's will for my future, just live out how I know how to (intentionally) and expect change to come naturally.

Relating to that, I've come to understand how useless I am as a person... Mostly through my former romantic relationship. I read somewhere that our goal as men when relating to women (all relationships, friends, dating, etc) should be this: The woman we're in contact with should be better off having met us. This is really convicting, because often as men, we want to see "how far" we can get, or how we can make women be more attracted to us, not taking into account the damage we're doing to them and how much worse off they'll be having met us. I read this before going into the relationship and now looking back, realize I completely failed. I was trying to evaluate my impact on her and realize I probably contributed nothing of a positive and lasting importance in her life. I shared this and it was affirmed. This is a very humbling thing, probably the most humbling thing that has ever happened to me. This event got me thinking of ways I could possibly impact people in the future or ways I could have done things differently in the past. I came up with nothing. I realized that as a person, I have absolutely nothing to offer anyone. I think this is a place that we need to come to in order for God to start using us for bigger and better things. This is not a place you can come to by reading something like this. I'm fairly sure you have to come to the point where you experience something like this yourself - God has to bring you here. It's a weird place to be. I'm not saying that now I'm even close to a perfect vessel by any means, but right now I feel like that if God used me for something big I would recognize it as Him, not me - because I know nothing good could come from me. This seems like something that would get me down and feeling sorry for myself, but it hasn't, which is stranger than ever... Praise God.

While we're on the topic if my former romantic relationship, I'd also like to share something I've also very recently discovered about myself (and maybe about you!). All through grade school I've always enjoyed having one-sided crushes - sure, they made me miserable and depressed, but there's a certain romance and mystery to be completely infatuated with someone who wouldn't ever consider you in that way. I've come to find I enjoy that romance and mystery (I like to think I'm a romantic), but I didn't really know that until now. This is a problem, because reveling in that is very self destructive and is in fact, living in sin. There's so much focus on yourself and the object of your infatuation that there's no room for God at all. I realized that after we broke up, my thoughts slowly started drifting in that direction again - a very bad thing, especially since I had already understood, accepted, and agreed with her reasons for breaking it off. It started happening in such a way that I didn't really notice, but before I knew it, I was doing it again - not wanting to give up my feelings for her because I enjoyed my misery. This taught me something very important that I should have picked up a long time ago - taking our thoughts (or attitude) captive is essential. I've been talking so much lately about how we need to live our lives intentionally - constantly be making decisions to glorify Christ. I now know that we also need to be completely intentional with our attitudes toward things. In my case, I need to change my attitude to: "Breaking up was the right thing to do and I can accept that, and if old feelings start coming up, I need to push them aside before they can grab a hold of me - I'm not in love anymore." For me, declaring something like this out loud makes it official (Make sure no one is listening. Awkward!). It's very easy to decide not to be in love anymore if you take this approach. Another step I took is completely removing any trace of her from my life - this meant taking her off my friends on Facebook, last.fm, Skype, and stop reading her blog, and since I don't live anywhere near her, I don't have to worry about that. Maybe some people can go right back to being "just friends," but I'm far too weak to handle something like that. When there's not tons of things all around you to remind you of the one you used to be so close with, it starts making it a lot easier to get over because there's less opportunity for your focus to get shifted back to those feelings. If you're in a situation where you have to see the person on a regular basis, I can imagine it to be a lot weirder and a lot harder. I pity the man that has to deal with this kind of a situation.

I think there's more. I don't remember and I'm super tired and should probably be getting to bed. I hope this was beneficial to someone.

2 Weeks

2008-12-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

Hi 11:47.

Left 4 Dead

2008-12-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

... is amazing. If you haven't heard of it, it's a first-person four-player-coop zombie-shooter.

Imagine this, there are four of us, me, Kurtis, Ralph, and one CPU player. We're on the last stage of the campaign where you have to defend a dark little beach shack waiting for a rescue boat to come. As soon as you call the radio for the boat, you hear the screams and grunts of hordes of zombies coming over the hills around you. Throwing a couple molotov cocktails to burn up a portion of them, you start opening fire on the ones that get through or come from a different direction. We're all up on a balcony firing down on them as they're coming up. Just then, the music changes and we hear the sound of a Tank coming. A Tank is a huge, buff zombie with gigantic muscles and the mannerisms of a large and angry gorilla. We start pouring bullets into him, light him on fire, and try to take him down. It usually takes over a minute of constant fire from all four of us to get rid of a Tank. The Tank takes Kurtis down as he's trying to distract it with a big swing of his massive arm. We all watch helplessly as it pummels Kurtis to a bloody pulp. It leaves three of us. We fight off the remaining hores of zombies, often having to save each other from Hunters, who pounce on you, Smokers, who drag you away with their long tongues and choke you to death, and Boomers, who vomit and exlode on you, making it hard to see and attracting more zombies to you. It's all mayhem but we're fairing pretty well until we hear the sound of another Tank coming. Dang it, there are always two. When we find it, I throw a molotov to catch it on fire, but it's already too late, it's right on top of Ralph pounding him to death, and as soon as he's down, the Tank gets straight on to the CPU player, who didn't stand a chance. I kill the Tank while he's distracted and hear the sound of the fog horns on the boat, so I run towards the dock while the boat inches closer - it's just me now. Then, I hear the hordes of zombies coming again and see them running towards me in the distance. I shoot a few of them to keep them off of me, and the boat is inching closer. I'm just about ready to get on, when I look over my shoulder and the horde of zombies is climbing onto the dock. I step one foot onto the boat, I'm home free! But then, I start getting pulled back. It's a smoker and he's got me around the neck. I get pulled into the horde and it's game over.

You can have fun and exciting experiences just like these for only $49.99!

http://www.l4d.com/

No More

2008-11-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

I want to sleep soundly again. To wake and be excited. I pretend to be happy. I pray for and seek real joy. Being home for the weekend is harder than I thought it would be. I can't keep coming back here.

If emotion were a physical object, I would craft myself a great hammer of an ancient oak and solid steel to lay the cruel beast on a mossy tree stump and, with one arcing swing, use every last bit of energy in my body to smash it and collapse to my knees to the sound of distorted guitars, watching gleefully with tears in my eyes as my anguish is seen flying in a thousand different directions, never to be collected and given me to carry again.

On a related and unrelated note:
The book of Job is amazing, I've never read through it before, just the beginning and the end, not the middle where the good stuff is. Job makes my suffering insignificant, I still like being able to relate in a small (over-dramatic) way. The dialog between he and his friends is amazing.

Couch Surfing!

2008-11-28T02:03:00.000-08:00

So I've never heard of this before, but I found this website today. It's called Couch Surfing. What is it, you ask? Well, it's not sitting on your couch skimming through TV channels, it's so much more exciting than that.

Couch Surfing is a huge online community of people that are willing to open up their houses for free to let travelers stay with them, hang out with them, show them around their place of residence, and just be generally hospitable. It's not just an American thing, in fact, there are over 200 countries represented in this and over 800,000 couch surfers.

After discovering this two things came to mind. One - this would be a GREAT way to experience a road trip across the U.S. AND a great way to experience Europe. You could do it with a friend or by yourself, either way it would be awesome. Just crashing on people's couches and hanging out with them all over the country/countries. Two - It would be so awesome to have my own place to host couch surfers. It would be such a cool ministry to be able to serve others by letting them use your couch, feeding them, and getting to know them. It's not even something that's very time consuming, you could be hosting couch surfers while working or going to school full-time.

The biggest question from people is: "Is it safe?" which is a good and valid question. They explain all the safety precautions on the website. Things like verifying identity and most importantly, user reviews. On every couch surfer's account you can see all the reviews they've been given as either a host or a guest, so it's basically just seeing someone's reputation with people. If you're a host you can decline any request to stay at your house, and they can't find out where you live until you tell them. Also, the stats on the website kind of speak for themselves. I was on just now and on their statistics page it says that in the past week, there were 14,180 positive, 22 negative feedback. That's a pretty dang good chance for something positive. They also posted that overall 99.794 percent of all experiences are positive (That's 2,058,419 positive experiences!)

Basically I'm just stoked for this. I kind of want to start doing it this summer, but I don't have any money. Might have to wait a little longer. I can't wait to see Europe and meet a bunch of people using this site. Seriously, I AM PUMPED!

Check it out - Couchsurfing.com

Learning to be Thankful

2008-11-27T13:52:00.000-08:00

I am thankful for:
- I am saved by Grace. I get to be thankful for eternity.
- My position at Ecola, as well as the awesome staff I have the honor to work with, and also the great student body we have.
- Good health. I haven't been sick once all summer and fall. I think I'm getting sick now, but I haven't been up until this point. Sweet.
- My abundance of possessions. I have too much stuff - what a dumb thing to complain about.
- A home to come to for Thanksgiving.
- Getting to see my uncle Ron for Thanksgiving and him and my other "uncle" Kent live so close that I can go visit them more often.
- A car that, while having a lot of weird little things wrong with it, runs perfectly and gets good gas mileage.
- A lifestyle where finding time for things isn't hard.
- So many opportunities to learn and grow recently, both as a person, and as a person in communion with God.
- The internet!
- My cat. This may seem weird, but my cat is really great.
- Friends. I take friends for granted, but there are some people who really can't say they have any friends. Sad. :(
- Music. I'm glad it was created.
- A cell phone. I really never use it other than as an alarm clock, but when I do need it, it's so nice to have.
- That I'm able to read and write, speak and see and hear. Communication is super cool.
- Enough food around me that I'm able to get fat if I want to. People complain about getting fat, but they're not starving to death - What's to complain about?
- Humor! Seriously, why is everything so funny?

Might update this more throughout the day.

(Small Realizations) Pt.4 of ? - Singleness Pt.1 of ?

2008-11-27T02:37:00.001-08:00

Time has been going by... so slowly. Maybe it's just the beach town life, but I don't know, it might have been going slowly before that. It seems quick while it's happening, but when I try to look back a week or two, or even a few days, it seems like so much more time has passed.

I cannot believe that I just "became single" a little over a week ago. It feels like it's been so long.

Other things about being single include feeling... back to normal? I don't know, it's just that I've been single for 20 years of my life. It's a lot more laid back, easy, inexpensive, but a lot less rewarding.

I think I'm single now for a reason - God wants my full attention while being an intern at Ecola. So that's what I'm committing. Do not (try my best) think upon girls until at least summer. This should be fairly easy, as there's a strict no-dating policy between interns and students anyway.

Irony was a big part of this as well. A break-up letter and a book I ordered in order to help fix our relationship arrived on the same day. Ha. Incidentally, one of the saddest times (break-up) was immediately followed by one of the happiest times (Left 4 Dead released). Ha HA! I see a divine sense of humor in all this.

Moving on is hard too. Ideas keep popping into my head of "what if..."s such as getting back together. I realize I shouldn't be hoping for such a thing (as I kind of think it impossible), but it doesn't stop me from the delusional hope of a possibility. Sigh. I wonder how long this will last? Pfft. It's only been a week.

Companionship was great. On this dude's blog (Which was, ironically, linked to me by my "ex") he says he started praying for his future wife way before he even met her. That's a good idea too.

I need to stop blogging about this. I don't know where else to let it out, though. I know that at least someone in the world will sympathize with me if I put it here, even if they don't say anything or reveal themselves.

Good things are around me, good things are coming. There's no reason to be a pessimist. (I've heard three separate messages about Thanksliving in the past four days. So weird. I might write one just keep spreading that cheesy word.)

--

In other news, I saw that new Pixar movie Bolt tonight - in 3D! It was good, top notch Pixar stuff as usual.

Watching some funny Youtube tonight - search for "The Muska Incident" so funny. "I had to rescue the Muska from the bad guys!" XD

Bluetooth headsets - how did we live so long without them?

Steel drums are probably the coolest form of percussion when applied correctly.

If you don't listen to drone music late at night, you should. Check out Loscil, Aidan Baker, Windy & Carl, and Slow Dancing Society.

Black Friday is going to be neat.

Space!

2008-11-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

Found this site on StumbleUpon. Very cool. Space is amazing, I wish I could go there.

See tons more here:
Hubble Heritage Image Gallery

(Small Realizations) Pt.3 of ?

2008-11-24T00:41:00.000-08:00

The best music is the kind that you don't like at first but love when you come back for a second or third try.

The clear night sky is my favorite of all creation. Besides people of course.

Burps that keep coming back tasting just as foul each time for hours... yuck. For me right now, it's an onion bagel. The onion doesn't like to let me forget that it's still there. I've resorted to swallowing Listerine before and I won't hesitate to do it again.

I'm getting more and more prepared for the zombie apocalypse every day. Left 4 Dead plus zombie movies. Prepare yourselves America. Ezekiel 37 and my loose hermeneutics tell me so.

How do headphones get into such complex knots when you put them in your pocket? Every time.

Being unselfish is hard. Harder as soon as it starts getting easier.

We make bigger deals of things than they really are and we're too prideful to change our ways.

Math Rock and Electro are both great genres I've only scratched the surface of.

Most emotions are very strange and uncomfortable. In particular "missing," "yearning," and "loneliness," are some that I particularly don't like or want to deal with. Sometimes I wish to be a stereotypical Hollywood lone ranger that doesn't have those problems. I would also get cool clothes and some guns.

People don't live thankfully and they need to. We're given so much and yet we complain about it all. Since what we're going to be doing in heaven is thanking God, why aren't we doing it now?

I just finished reading Born After Midnight by AW Tozer. It's a quick read with lots and lots of accessible and good information in it.

Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack will save Cartoon Network as we know it.

It's 1:11 AM. Goodnight.

Sleep is a Curse

2008-11-23T01:27:00.000-08:00

Why is it so hard for me? I can't sleep. Even when I can, it takes me a long time to get there. When I'm completely out of energy I still can't sleep.

Am I becoming an insomniac? :(

Aerial Photography

2008-11-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. Look: Link.

Confession

2008-11-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

When activity dies down;

When I'm alone with my thoughts;

When I run out of things to do;

I start to miss her.

Her subtle giggle,

Her warmth (and cold),

Her sense of purpose,

Her honesty and conviction.

And when it comes down to it,

No matter what I do,

I can't really do anything.

Learning to live without.

It's Not Really What You Think...

2008-11-21T01:52:00.000-08:00

I realized today in one of my Ecola intern classes that foreign missions isn't really what I thought it was. I guess I may have realized this last year at Ecola when we had our missions class, but I don't really remember.

Foreign missions doesn't always have to be wearing a loin cloth and joining a tribe and preaching the Word.

For most people, foreign missions is as simple as this:
1: Get a profession.
2: Take that profession to an unreached or less-reached part of the world.
3: Do your job of choice well and live intentionally to let your light shine so that people start asking questions.

If you take out step two, that's how Christians should be living locally anyway. It's just a matter of doing exactly the same thing in a less-reached part of the world. The only thing that makes it harder is adjusting to a new culture and finding fellowship there.

Foreign missions is much more appealing to me now that I know that having my career of choice and being a foreign missionary aren't mutually exclusive. I'm still a long way off from deciding, but I'm curious as to where I'm going to end up.

Not everyone is supposed to live in the jungle. Not everyone should have a preacher-style approach to missions. That is good to know.

...And Do Whatever

2008-11-13T22:56:00.001-08:00

So I was sitting in my intern class today (I'm an intern at Ecola Bible School) and our teacher said something very interesting to me that kind of blew my mind. My mind was blown today. It was mainly this quote:

Love, and do what you like.
-Saint Augustine

I don't really know who Saint Augustine is, but that quote rings very true to me. Also, when the teacher said it, he said "Love God, and do what you like," which makes more sense to me but still. The class was about trying to find out God's will and this concept was a sub-point. The teacher was saying that we can figure out God's unrevealed will (Our future, and choices to be made) by consciously carrying out his revealed will (Principles, promises, and commands in scripture), which goes hand in hand with this quote.

So to find out God's will, all we have to do is love and then do whatever we want. This can sound very liberal and non biblical until examined. In order to live out this lifestyle, one can't let these two things contradict each other. Let's look at this:

Love for God can be carried out in these ways:
1: Prayer, Bible Intake, Worship - Basically growing closer to God by the usual means. Worship can be what you make it, so don't associate the word with the act of singing modern "praise songs." Everything you do in life can be made into worship, which leads me to...
2: Living Intentionally - Many Christians think that by living their normal lives, they're being a "light to the world" as we're commanded to. That's partially true, but just living life like normal isn't going to do that. You need to always, ALWAYS be giving 100% towards letting your light shine as bright as you can. Simply hanging out and having a good time isn't going to set you apart from the rest of the world like we're commanded, you must always be having a servant and giving mindset, putting others ahead of ourselves. Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount to "Let your light shine so that men may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven," and Paul tells us to "Work out our salvation..." Christianity is not works-based, but in order to live the Christian life, we must always be giving EVERYTHING in us to let our lights shine brighter. Which leads me to...
3: Fellowship - Christians also sometimes think that fellowship is just hanging out with other Christians, similar to how they think that you can just live a passive, easy lifestyle and claim that you're being a witness by the way you life. No, fellowship is more than that, it's keeping each other accountable, it's sharing your hopes and fears, it's telling other about what God is doing in your life, it's being completely transparent, it's trusting and relying on the rest of the body of Christ. Fellowship is not talking to other Christians about school, your job, your life, and never even mentioning God or His place in your life and how you're doing in your walk with him. This must be remembered when meeting with other Christians.
4: Furthering the Kingdom - This goes with my second point, about living intentionally, and is very similar. We must always be on the look out for ways in which we can make God's name glorified among men. Selfishness isn't an option.

I realize most of these things, many people already know, but it doesn't help to be reminded. This is also not an exhaustive list of ways we can live lives pleasing to God. But when you're striving to live a life pleasing to God, you're living in God's revealed will for your life. What about his unrevealed will? How will we ever figure that out?

I learned tonight that we shouldn't worry about God's unrevealed will for our life. If we concentrate on doing what we know is right and move forward with our lives, we're putting ourselves in the best position to let God guide us. If we focus on what God will have in our future, we'll just be sitting there clueless and not getting anywhere. Like a ship, it must be moving forward for the rudder to be able to steer it. We must be moving forward in our Christian walks in order for God to guide us.

But what if you have a fork in the road and don't know which way to go? My response to that would be to decide which path you'd most like to take, keeping in mind you're trying to live a life pleasing to God. Sometimes the decision can be hard, but standing in one spot never helps. Seek counsel from other mature Christians and tell them what's going on and let them help you to examine the decision in front of you, but don't let them tell you what to do.

There was another quote, but I'm not exactly sure who said it or exactly how it goes. I will paraphrase: God is not in the business of making maps. Rather, he gives us flashlights to see the road directly ahead of us. It makes sense.

All in all, the easiest way to look at the Christian life is that St. Augustine quote I put at the beginning. If we're striving to live a life pleasing to God, it should be easy for us to press on into the unknown. If we know that we're doing all we can to live out God's revealed will for us, the future and God's plans for us shouldn't be worried about, even though we have the tendency to do just that.

I owe a lot of what is written here to God speaking to me through L██ B███████ at M████ B████ and the class he gave us tonight.

The Lows

2008-11-13T00:45:00.000-08:00

Things suck. I realize that right now I'm being a total hypocrite because I've recently been convicted that I and those around me complain to much about stupid things like the taste of food or unfavorable weather.

But let me put you in my boots in a vague way.

1. Realization of several heart changes that need to be made. This happened a couple weeks ago and there are things in my life that just can't stay the same. Change is always hard, but there's also the hope of a better life in the future.
2. A relational fork in the road that could go one of two ways (Break-up or Commitment). It's not really that I would be totally destroyed by either path, it's just the not knowing which one it will be that's hard. I know exactly which path I would choose if it were up to me (I'm sure you could guess which), but I've come to realize that either one is going to lead to something good eventually. I have no control, no say in the matter. That is hard.
3. Things around me constantly changing. I've led such a comfortable and uneventful life with so many material comforts and now God is teaching me that my material comforts were false all along. It's a healthy realization but also a shocking and uncomfortable one. Making the transition from relying on my world to relying on my God is sometimes overwhelming, yet I know I have to keep at it.
4. Asking for advice is hard. I know a few people that would be cool to talk to, but the opportunity always passes before I see it. I've ended up kicking myself several times for letting those moments get away before I can say anything.

These and maybe... maybe other things that I don't know about have led to my overwhelmment and exhaust. I'm always tired, always trying to let go, cast my burdens on Him. All this and I'm in a position of ministry where I'm supposed to be helping other people out. It's so hard not to focus on yourself when you're feeling like crap, no, that word does not do it justice. It's hard not to focus on yourself when you're feeling like shit. I realize focusing on myself will lead to more demise, but really, I don't know how not to.

I realize all of this can be solved with prayer, time, and continual learning. Humans are short-sighted by nature. When we're in a storm and can't see the end we think it's the end of the world. I realize that the Holy Spirit can help us to overcome that. I realize all of this, but I cannot make the changes happen on my own and that is also frustrating. The thing about spiritual concepts is that we can hear about them and figure them out long before our hearts are actually changed to understand them. Giving your heart over to be changed is the hard part, and you have to learn how to do it in a different way every time.

Excuse my whining, it's a lot of my emotions talking. Also excuse my vagueness, but it really would take a long time to go into details. I hope someone who reads this can relate and find something beneficial in all this negativity.

Note to self: I realize I say the word realize a lot. Expand vocab.

Thoughts on Conversion

2008-09-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why militant Atheists more deeply indoctrinate themselves into Atheism... I mean, they do stuff like read books and listen to seminars and watch programs about Atheism. If Atheism is supposed to be the lack of religion, why do they "grow in faith" the way every other religion does? And beyond that, the fact that they go out of their way to try to disprove other religions to "convert" people to Atheism just makes no sense to me.

Along the lines of conversion and such, I think it's funny the way "Christian conversion" works. I mean, all anyone has to do is get you to argue with them and you automatically lose. If you win an argument, you lose. If you lose an argument, you lose. Conventional means of getting another to see your opinion is lost in the Christian faith and your only tool is the love of Christ and living out your faith and letting the Holy Spirit do his thing. As soon as you start trying to change someone else, you fail. You should be living by example, not trying to change peoples' mind. This is lost in America, for the most part, and runs rampant among high-schoolers and super-conservatives. It's scary that our witness is lost because people insist on trying to argue people into the faith.

I could go deeper but I'm too tired. :\

(Small Realizations) Pt.2 of ?

2008-09-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

I went shopping at Fred Meyer today and figured two very important things out:

I found [and purchased] this face wash that has a pulsing LED light in it. Some people would ask "Why do you need that?"...

...But my question is: Why don't all my hygiene products have lights in them? Get on it, America.

Another thing: Why don't more people wear boxer briefs? They're so much better than boxers, and I can say that with confidence after only wearing them for a few hours.

AND ANOTHER THING: Why have I never heard of E for Explosion before? Thanks to E█████ D███ I've found this awesome dreampop band. So glorious. ON SECOND THOUGHT after listening to the lyrics, this band is incredibly stupid. I still like the music though...

Change is a Burden

2008-09-06T23:42:00.001-07:00

Not for me, for most people. I'm talking about changes on the internet and in technology. Primarily, people who complain about Vista, or the recent redesigns of last.fm and Facebook. This was sparked by being invited to a group on Facebook called something ridiculous like "1,000,000 UNITE AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK!" more like "HELLO WE ARE IGNORANT AND AFRAID OF CHANGE!"

Seriously, get over it. The only reason people don't like it is because it's new. It's always that way and people still don't get it. When software changes, in most cases, it's going to stay that way, and it's always like that. The change is for the better - we would still all be using Windows 98 if that weren't the case, and there are still people that use it because they can't grow up and learn to adapt. They suffer the consequences for themselves in using outdated software, so there's really no reason for me to get so fired up about this, I just don't like seeing people being so helpless and clueless.

Update for recent changes: Listen to yourselves, whining that you want the old Facebook back when a few months prior you were whining that you wanted the old old Facebook back. You'll adapt to this like you've adapted to that.

I suppose this can be translated into real life as well. You can figure that out on your own.

(Small Realizations) Pt.1 of ?

2008-09-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

This post is for things I've realized in recent minutes, days, or weeks...

I forget what I'm going to say a lot.

I don't like it when someone, myself included, brings up something great from my past. It's a wonderful thing, except then I want to go rush out and buy it so I can relive that experience. Currently, it's Guitar Hero II and I can't find it anywhere. Lots of my possessions are acquired this way.

I need to find a way to pray that makes it so I don't get sidetracked so easily. E████ suggested that I "pray in color" which means doing things visually like drawing or writing or looking at pictures. Sounds good.

My dad and my brother don't get along. I hope I'm not going to have to deal with this my whole life.

Controlling Foobar on my desktop from my laptop via foo_httpcontrol.dll is probably one of the coolest things I've done recently. Sitting on my couch changing my music with my laptop is amazing[ly lazy of me oh well].

Energy drinks don't make me more energetic, just more talkative and prone to silliness. They are also good at making me stay up really late and write on my blog because I don't feel tired.

The belt loops on jeans hurt my tailbone. :(

I don't like watching movies during the day, it makes me feel unproductive and uncomfortable. This doesn't stop me from being unproductive anyway.

I feel kind of purposeless right now. I guess just because I have no schedule to stick to until school starts.

I miss man nights on the basketball court with K███ and A██████.

P.S. I am no longer single. Meet E████. Here's us being dead serious because R██ R████ is a serious business kind of restaurant - no joke.

Hello 2:00AM

2008-05-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

I prefer you to 2:00PM

Meet my friends Windy & Carl.

The Lack of Love, It's Disheartening

2008-05-20T02:16:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking a lot. Being here in San Diego with no accountability (besides facebook correspondence) has made me a little depressed after living at Ecola for a year. It's like quitting fellowship cold turkey, and it sucks.

So, right, thinking. I was thinking about what kind of impression I make on people that first meet me. We're supposed to be the "light of the world" but I can't see myself doing that right now. It's not that I don't know how. I know I'm supposed to be loving and that that is the key to it all. It's just that around people I'm uncomfortable with I tend to not talk very much. I feel like after meeting someone I give off more of the impression of "a nice quiet kid" than someone who is more loving than anyone else they know. I know I can't just make this leap in one step, but it frustrates me that I've just now realized this.

It's not just in meeting people for the first time, I was trying to analyze how I'm being loving to people I already know. I don't go out of my way to do so. I think in general I'm usually pretty kind to everyone, but I know I can get sarcastic at times, and I can complain at times, and I can mope at times. I feel like if I'm not around people I love being around that these "at times" moods I get in come out more.

This all makes me question myself a lot and beat myself up about it (Not the right reaction, I know). It makes me wonder how serious I am about following Christ. It scares me. But it also is doing good: It's given me a major project to work on and has given me more focus in showing love to others.

Most of all, it gives me one big important lesson: The church is important. We need to stick together in love, and if I'm not in continual fellowship and accountability with other Christians I become stagnant. People always emphasis "Make sure you're praying and reading your Bible every day" but they're also leaving out an important ingredient that I hadn't realized was that important until now. Must note for future.

Pharisaical Tendencies

2008-05-14T00:46:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I'm filthy, I'm guilty, I'm struggling.

Things I don't like: When people put their prayers to God in their Facebook status. I see it every day. It seems to me exactly what the Pharisees did - praying their prayers out loud for everyone to hear to puff themselves up. I know the intentions may be good (maybe...) but this has to stop.

⁵ "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

-Matt 6:5,6 NIV

And I shouldn't need to tell you the harm this can cause to people who are basing their knowledge of Jesus on your life. I say this in love.

Seeking rebuke-in-return here. Feel free.

edit: To clarify, I don't think there's anything wrong with praising God in your status, asking for prayer requests in your status, or generally theming your status about things above. It's a good thing.

The Past

2008-05-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching this movie called Awake. Terrible actors, wonderful movie. Anyways, there's a scene where he sees something in his past that he completely blocked out before then, and it sorta makes me wonder if I've done that at any point. Something that I just made myself forget. Nothing comes to mind (duh), but it's an interesting concept - especially if it can actually be done. Amazing thing, the brain.

Something else sort of related that I was thinking about earlier today: What events growing up turned me into the person I am today. Cause and effect sort of thing. Thinking about an aspect of myself, like why I'm so quiet around people I don't know all that well? What happened as a child that made me like that, or was I just made like that? My mom told me she was shy all through highschool and now she's exactly the opposite. How did that happen? Am I actually not a shy person? Will I one day become a social butterfly like she is? Can anyone do that? I don't mind being shy, that's not what I'm getting at - I'm perfectly content being shy like I am. I'm just wondering what sort of events in a persons life trigger dramatic shifts in personality.

I guess this is all just psychology.

In other news, I got a haircut today - the first time in years that I've actually gotten it professionally cut. I usually just have my mom do it. I'm very pleased.

Also: Slow Dancing Society and Windy & Carl are my new ambient/drone obsessions. Thought I'd share.

Some Thoughts On Prayer

2008-05-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

"⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That man should not think he will recieve anything form the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."
James 1:5-8 NIV

Reading this last night was hard for me to grasp. I mean, it's hard not to doubt because you don't know the mind of God. To me, to ask for something and then just assume that it will be given in the way I want seems foolish. I suppose this isn't really what this passage is saying, but it sort of feels like that. It's hard for me to not doubt that God will answer a prayer, because he may have in mind something totally different for me. I guess when James mentions believe and not doubt he's probably not referring to believing that your prayer will be answered in the way that you want, but in the way that God plans.

It does make sense, but I've just sort of been struggling with this lately. When I ask God for something, I don't know if I should expect it to be answered in a certain way. I feel like if I completely expect God to answer my prayer, I'm being too bold or something and then when I feel like I'm only halfheartedly expecting anything, I'm being the kind of double-minded man James is talking about. It's a good thing he sheds further light on the subject later in the book:

"³When you ask, you do not recieve because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
James 4:3 NIV

Most of the time I have this inner struggle is when I'm asking for something for myself, but it's not always for selfish motives. Sometimes it's for God to make a change in me to become more like Him, or give me a position to more effectively serve. I have no idea why this is so except that it's tough to know when you're being selfish, so you've always got to be examining why you're asking for something. For instance, maybe I'm asking to be conformed to God's image in order to impress someone, or maybe I want that position to serve God because it's where I feel most comfortable. Selfish motives just trickle in.

It's neat how after writing down your thoughts they make more sense. I landed in San Diego yesterday and it's been cloudy, which is lame. On the upside, the room I'm staying in is just bomb-diggity. Pictures soon. The house is gnarly cool, my dad just moved in so it's still a mess, but the awesomeness just shines through it. Really high ceilings, exposed beams, plasma mounted on wall, post-modern artsy couches and lamps. I set up the computer that I'm typing on now to use three monitors instead of one.

Yeah here it is. I love it.

On a completely unrelated note, never let a girl write 'I ♥ K██████' on your hand in a pen that doesn't come off easily; After seeing that on yourself for hours on end, you start to kinda believe it. :|

I Just Became a... Boy

2008-05-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

I told two different girls today that they were 'a better man than I.' What does that say about my manhood? Should they take that as a compliment? These are questions we must all ask ourselves.

Flying to San Diego in several hours.

Ongoing: Things That Amplify Infatuation

2008-05-04T18:35:00.001-07:00

Amplified Infatuation: Increased feelings of affection or desire for a member of the opposite sex through various common aesthetics.

This is just me, I have no idea if other people feel the same sensations with these things or not (feel free to share in comment form). Also: This isn't about or inspired by anyone specific, just noticing trends over the years.

Lights at night in several different ways:
- Streetlights against a black sky.
- Warm lights from inside small houses seen from outside.
- Bright directional lights shining in your face, especially when colored.
- Most importantly, the way it casts shadows.
Ambient music, deep house music, anything down-tempo. Proper application of reverb on guitar.
A light, cool breeze on the face. Works best during late afternoon, but can be effective at night too.
Hot water including hot tubs, sink water, showers.
Incense, perfume, fruit gummies, sometimes shampoo.

The Celestial Banquet I Missed

2008-03-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

A few notes about this short story. It's sort of based on a real life experience. No, I didn't eat mushrooms and fly with the clouds. It is, however, the result of leaving a little social gathering and going out to a field and staring a most beautiful night sky and letting my imagination run with it. The first paragraph and parts of the second are more of a narration, and the story part just sort of weaves into it. The person described in the third paragraph is a girl I care[d] for very much [A█████ W█████████]. A friend pointed out that this story didn't have much of a conflict, which is true. I guess I just wasn't aiming to make a story, just paint an image of floating with the clouds on a clear night, a fantasy I've always wished I could fulfill. Hope you like it.

--
The Celestial Banquet I Missed
by M███

I stepped out into the night and it was one of those nights that you're glad you have a sweatshirt, but even if you didn't you would probably be fine as long as you walk fast. I don't remember being cold, because the lights back inside the hall were colorful and they shined in your face and made you feel warm. It's a kind of warm that sticks with you after you go outside, and if you have an emotion going into that place it just amplifies it. It's just something about the colored lights in your face; It's probably why they use them for musical performances. I didn't want to be in that place though - there were too many people and the lights were playing at my emotions. I made for the door, quickly explained my reasoning to a good friend along the way, and stepped out into the night. Back to square one.

I was planning on just going back to my room to sulk or read or some other lonely task, but I got a glimpse of the sky and decided that it were more important than my sulking or my books, and so I went to a place where the sky and I could be alone for a while. It still wasn't that cold, I doubt I could see my breath, but I don't remember. The moon had had a busy night painting those clouds, so I didn't blame her for hiding behind them for a while. I still knew she was there, and her work was displayed beautifully on the clouds which I'm sure they appreciated. It had been a long time since I had joined the clouds for a flight over the trees, over the beach, over the lights of distant cities. The sky was clearer than you'd expect with all those clouds up there, but the clouds were all low and moving slowly all at the same level so the stars could also say hi. I believe they were having a banquet without me, not that I wasn't invited, but I just hadn't checked my mail that day so I assumed I just didn't get the invite. They didn't seem too surprised to see me, the stars, so they must have been expecting me.

I was frustrated at gravity for holding me so tightly. The clouds were definitely low enough that I could have floated for a short time and joined them for the last hour before I'd be turning in for the night. I reasoned with gravity, but gravity is very strict and stubborn and hadn't allowed me to go out with the clouds for quite some time. I was told to obey those who governed over me, so I didn't protest. Gravity took notice of me and my obedience and told me that I could go up for an hour. I thanked gravity and hurried on my way but stopped for a moment, wondering whether or not to go back in and get you, as I'm sure you'd also enjoy the journey. I decided against it, you were already having a good time and an hour isn't very long. Not long enough for your first time. Gravity let me go and I sailed upwards. The clouds welcomed me and I told them I had missed them and that I wouldn't let myself be gone for that long again. Gravity didn't hear that part.

From the plains of clouds I could see the stars better now, and they were definitely enjoying themselves. I didn't stop to join them, I had already supped full during dinner and didn't need a celestial banquet at the moment, although they always do have the best of foods. If I was going to spend my night with the clouds I needed to go with them right then. We started above the field I had been standing in, and I could see now all the lights from the city. The mountains stood in the distance, just a little lower than us and the great forests of pines ran wide. The moon had painted them all earlier also, a very pretty white and blue that she had used on the clouds. We kept moving and gently glided over the water. The ocean looks and sounds different from up there, more distant, more sleepy. The stars saw us move over the water, as they had finished eating and were relaxing and talking to one another, watching the small ones carousing at their feet. The distant lights from other cities shone dimly, but were a remarkable spectacle all the same.

The clouds told me that my time was almost up, I didn't want to be late for sleep. The stars bid me farewell and I drank from their pools in order to quiet my mind. The moon took my hand and gravity beckoned me back down gently as I said goodnight to my elysian friends. It was a perfect end for any night, and I serenely thanked gravity for allowing me to go out. As I walked back to my room, the water from the pools of the stars started to prevail on me and I settled into bed and fell into a deep sleep to join my friends as a star in the sky, hiding under the veil of night and riding the wings of dawn into morning.