My roommate has been sleeping on the couch for about an hour, now. I feel like he should get up before he ruins his sleep cycle.

I used to consider myself sort of an amateur writer. I've been a dabbler all my life. But now I'm so out of practice that my style is all floppy. Everything I say sort of just...spews out. Which is fine, for nutang, but I sort of lament the loss of whatever potential there might have been to move people with words. I suppose I'll have to stick to ideas, and laughter. Apparently I'm good at laughter.

About the Palestinian guy I mentioned earlier: last night we were at Steak n Shake (after a successful pledge ceremony!) and I...I don't remember properly...he asked the group something and I gave some answer, as a I tend to do. Depending on my frame of mind and the situation, my interactions can be snappy and witty or surprisingly ponderous. I don't think I usually show an image of thoughtfulness or insight, so when I do it catches people off-guard. This was one of those moments, because he asked me if I was some sort of guru.

"Er...what?"

"Yeah, are you some sort of spiritual guru or something?"

Gosh. I've never been compared to a guru. I wish I remember what I said to provoke that because I'm fairly sure it had nothing to do with spirituality. And also I wish I could recall my answer (probably something along the lines of "no").



Roommate won't get up.

Homegirl texted me today. I'd actually deleted her number to avoid this annoying habit I have. I was trying to cut down on how often I texted her, since it seemed to bother her (because I pulled a classic stupid-boy move, to my eternal shame) and that sort of bothered me. The problem was that, in my head, I'd exaggerate how long it had been since I last contacted her, so I ended up pestering her a lot more than I meant to. I figured I'd lose her number and solve the problem. After all, if I need to talk to her I can still use facebook, which doesn't present the intimacy and ease-of-access issues that texting has. So I was befuddled to get such a friendly message from a number I didn't recognize this morning, encouraging me to kick butt in school this semester and have a great time doing it.

Thankfully, I stifled the urge to immediate respond with "Who is this?" I don't feel like explaining that I deleted her number practically out of necessity. Instead, I asked Ben about it, and he recognized the area code, and from there I realized the state of things (good thing I only know one other person with that area code!).

So that's cool. On one hand, I had totally forgotten that I'm supposed to be letting her alone, meaning I'm not relying on her as much for my emotional self-value. And on the other, she actually contacted me, which is a rarity, indeed! I feel pretty good about that, though now I'm wondering if I should un-delete her number or go back to my comfy ignorance. Does this mean we're cool? Somehow I don't think so, which is something of a shame but not unbearable.

I think I'll leave it for now, and see what she does. If she was like some of the girls I know then we could go on to be best pals, but it seems like she isn't and I don't particularly blame her.


Enough of that.

By the way, "Homegirl" is the affectionate nickname we use in our apartment to refer to a girl that tends to elicit drama in our lives. For example, one particular roommate has a tendency to get is emotional fulfillment from being popular with and getting attention from girls (as opposed to from God). So when he says Homegirl I know he's referring to the latest female that he's a bit hung up on. It's convenient and also sort of a joke at his expense. We usually advise him to marry the lucky lady as soon as possible.

As an eternal troll to Katie, I usually refer to her as "Ex-Homegirl," because I know she'd hate it.

Speaking of which, I was going to write about some stuff in my life but I just spent few minutes writing it out to Katie so I think I'll just be lazy and copy/paste it.

Me: I had something of an epiphany on Friday and I'm hoping it will light a fire under my bottom.

Her: oh?

Me: Yeah
I was nominated for a leadership position in the campus ministry
and I turned it down
Because right now I don't think that I'm in a position where I can say that I could do my best in school, work, fraternity, ministering, AND leadership
I think that because I've had a lot of great opportunities the last few years and I have not made good use of them.
I've been following Christ for a year and a half, but I don't think I've matured nearly as much as I would have if I'd been making better use of my time and energy.
The same goes for my grades and work
So...I guess the moral of the story is I'm coming at it from a new angle.
Instead of just trying to make it through and hope I come out better afterwards, I want to go after building better character and all that stuff.
So that means working hard and depending on God instead of just trying to slide by
It'll be an interesting week.

Her: isn't it always

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

I figure I should be upset. Or something. Hell, maybe even happy. But I'm not. Not to be cliché, but I feel rather like a robot. It's, well, kind of weird.

I'll probably set into a pissy mood later. At least it'll show that things are normal around here. Yes, anger would be nice.

Then again, I rather liked it when things weren't normal.

EDIT: Things are fine. Just a temporary situation. It's not even worth mentioning. So, I won't.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

Over the past few days my demeanor and understanding of both the outside forces and my own part in the situation have both changed a good deal. I've gone from being angry at the friend to being upset with the girl. I will not get into details because it's complicated and I'm trying to eat my dinner here. Haha.

Yesterday, I was having a discussion with the friend concerning her behavior. He sides with her, saying she had every right to act as she did. I disagreed, and I found his excuses and reasons to be more and more infuriating. At one point we just broke it off.

I couldn't sleep.

After tossing and turning, watching my breathing, trying to clear my mind, searching my room for a lost puzzle, and various other tactics to distract myself, I finally jumped out of bed around 3, stalked downstairs, filled a mug with milk, microwaved it, and took it outside. It wasn't until I tried to admire the moon that I realized that I didn't have my glasses, or until I sat on the cold metal chair that I realized that I'd come outside naked. I'm far too comfortable without clothes on.

Point is, I haven't had to warm up milk in YEARS. It was kind of nice. I sat around for a while before I thought of what havoc the mosquitoes were wreaking on my exposed flesh and went back in. Then I grabbed my laptop and watched Team America until I fell asleep.

I'm happy to say that I feel almost no inclination to finish the "film". The same goes for the last movie that I fell asleep to: Talladega Nights. Ugh.

One thing that I realized really bothers me: When people say "It was meant to happen." They say that and just use it as a catch-all for ugly situations they don't want to think about. That is not a reason or excuse for anything! It isn't that I disagree with the statement itself. It just seems awfully redundant. Obviously "it" was meant to happen, or it wouldn't have! I told him, "Yes, it was meant to happen. And my angry and hurt response was also meant to happen." Gosh, I just want to punt people sometimes.

-grumble-

Something I realized moments ago as I was writing this was that, in food, the interplay between temperatures is as pleasing as that between taste or texture. It's sort of neat to have cold noodles at the bottom of the bowl, so you can mix them with the hot stuff on top. Unless they're all cold. Bleh.

Listen.

Comment! (2) | Recommend!

This me with my campus ministry Tuesday night. Here, we've just baptized two fellows. We did two more the previous week, and another the week before. It's been an incredible semester with lots of growth, ministry-wise. I'm so proud of them, and I'm so happy to be helpful to such a worthy cause. wittle baby Christians. They're adorable.



This is me with my fraternity Saturday night. We've just initiated four guys into the brotherhood. It's a little less than last semester.

I'm struck by how similar greek life (in theory) is to church life. Both organizations strive to better themselves and the world. Both have high ideals of character, are social by nature, and revolve around brotherhood. Both have a "ritual," something that everyone agrees on and that binds them together.

Of course, that's only in theory.

It's getting to the point where people at the college ministry consider me a leader. I've been around the block, at least from a college student's standpoint, and there are around a dozen younger Christians just at my school who need someone to be there for them, to harass or exhort them, to love them. The same way I've been taken care of, and continue to be. It's sort of exciting. But also sort of crazy.

I don't feel like an example. I feel like a joker. But someone's gotta do it!

This summer I'll stay near school, probably work in the lab and help out at church where ever I can. Then it's one more easy semester, and graduation! Oh, joy.

Tonight we had a special "Good Friday" devotional. It was...pretty intense. But super helpful! Helps me keep my head on straight. Definitely looking forward to Easter.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Atlanta Steeplechase. My fraternity is going as a group date, but Walter and I are sort of going as our own double date within the larger date. I've been looking forward to this since I heard we were buying tickets, but now it seems like I'm going to have a fifth passenger in my car on the way there and back. REALLY not excited about a random guy edging in on our personal time together. We can usually spend that time talking about more personal stuff, and it's especially important to me since we're going to be with the fraternity the rest of the time. But, such is life.

I'm going to attempt some computational physics homework, read some scripture, and hit the hammock. Nightio

Comment! (1) | Recommend!