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Baptism by Rock
Monday. 9.3.12 11:10 pm
What a long and stupendous day.

I got up with the sun so I could be ready for pickup at seven thirty. The plan was to meet all the campus students from my church and our nearby sister church in a parking lot about half an hour away from campus. Then there'd be driving, tubing down a river, and hiking up near a waterfall! Exciting news, gentlemen and ladies.

The tubing itself was quite a lot of fun. We had about thirty peeps in our group. The bus ride to the drop point was full of very loud singing and clapping. I swan-dove into the pile of inner tubes and got wet bruises for my trouble. Some poor soul immediately flipped their tube before even leaving port. At first, everyone was kind of just floating and swimming around the river, trying to flip each other and get some good fellowship in and stuff. After a while, we started collecting in clumps. There were a lot of rocks to get stuck on, so I made myself useful by "flexing" our little amoeba and moving into the best flows. As our clumps grew, this became more complicated. I spent most of my time face-up on my tube, holding another with each arm and trying to position a third to support my head. Consequently, when we got stuck at one point, I couldn't see the pure catastrophe that was building right behind me (I was floating head-first). I ignored the cries to let go of my neighbors, insisting hold the group together like I had been doing. Suddenly, I felt a strong pull in one direction. "Success!" I thought. We began to quickly move.

We began to quickly leave my tube behind. Before I knew it, I was being dragged backwards over multiple sets of small waterfalls, mostly underwater. I think it was at least four. Eventually I surfaced with several scratches along my back (my shirt mostly protected me), a major cramp in my leg, and one of my Vibrams trying to escape, and a wayward tube following closely behind. One of the girls asked, "Are you OK?!"

"I think I'm dead," was my answer.

After that little fiasco, I relegated myself to the outskirts of the amoeba and spent less time flexing and more time listening to the songs we were singing. There were less rocks, so that was nice.

When we exited the river, some of us stayed in town to go on that hiking trip. The actual trail was pansy stuff. Mostly flat, a few switch-backs, mud and gravel. But the river! There were great rocks for climbing, lots of slippery surfaces to slide around on, and an awesome alcove carved out by a little waterfall. And then it rained, and that little waterfall got pretty swollen, and I PUT IT ON MY BACK. I mean, I crawled up under it, and stood up under its force, and roared!

fierce

Anyway, we hiked back in the rain, got in our cars, and skidaddled. I met a few really great and godly kids, had some good talks, wore my body out, ate some nature for breakfast, and just generally had a blast. Whoo!

Man. I'm still hyped up, and I have school in twelve hours. Better jump on that. Night kiddies.

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I DO WHAT I WANT
Wednesday. 8.29.12 12:43 am
...I just think that's fun to say.

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Tethys
Monday. 8.13.12 1:47 pm
Greetings, mortals.

I tried to count the places I've slept this year. My best tally is:
1 bus
1 car
1 couch
1 futon
2 airplanes
2 separate patches of ground
4 floors
and seven beds

That translates to nine cities in four states, not counting the planes, buses, and cars.

Busy summer, considering I've actually been taking classes.

I HAVE A CAR NOW GUYS

This is big, considering I'm going into my third year at a university that's a good four hours from my home. It's a used 2011 Hyundai Sonata. She's a deep, dark, blue-green job. The color of the ocean on a stormy night. I'm calling her Tethys, both after the Greek Titan (mother to several major rivers and many smaller bodies of water, Hera's nurse, considered old, relatively unknown) and Saturn's moon (16th largest known moon in our solar system, abnormally high albedo, negligibly eccentric orbit, over 90% water ice).

I'm very excited.

Now...what do to about all the physics classes, fraternity business, work with church, and research I'm going to have to deal with this semester...

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threads
Saturday. 7.14.12 2:35 pm
My life...

hmm

I wish I could make it concise. I feel like there's just SO much going on right now, both inside and out, and I can't even really talk about it anymore. I hang out with people from church, a lot, and everyone wants to know how everyone else is doing. Which is fine! I like to ask people what's going on, and I like to be asked, usually.

But sometimes, I feel like it's just not an applicable question.

I went to a rather large conference in San Antonio last week, and leading up to it, everyone was getting really fired up and super excited about what was to come. People kept wanting to know how I was feeling, being a pretty new Christian and never having gone to such a large gathering before. I wasn't as energetic as others. I didn't really have any expectations. People ask, "how do you feel?" and I have to say, "I don't."

It's not that I wasn't happy to be going or anything like that. It's just that I tend to close off when the ambient excitement exceeds my own. And, while I CAN be very energetic and even hyper-active, it's not a state of being that I can hop into at will. When I feel like being quiet, I can't continue to be loud. It takes too much emotional stamina. At times like those, I prefer to watch more than to participate. I don't set expectations if I've got nothing to set them by. It makes no sense to me.

On a related note, the conference was a total blast. I met a few people, had a lot of fun, and generally just learned a lot. It's definitely a good thing that I decided to go (mostly at the urging of my fellow disciples, haha).

I feel sort of bad that I don't post here as much as I used to. I feel like this community is stagnating a bit, and I'm not helping by being absent. At the same time...I dunno, I guess my urge to blog has severely decreased in the past few months. I talk about my life with friends a lot more than I used to, so maybe the need for me to write things down and work them out has diminished.

I do miss my old friends, though. Everyone seems so busy and far away, though I guess the same is true of me. It's possible my naivete about the bonds of highschool friendship is wearing off. Maybe that's a good thing? Still sad, but it is what it is. I feel like the people I used to be close to just aren't the same anymore. Certainly, I'm not. (And here, I thought I would always be the same.) Our interests and values don't meet up anymore. The only thing holding us together is a commitment and nostalgia.

How tenuous.

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