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| Samantha, put down the gun...I realize I haven't posted in ages. This is because pretty much nothing has happened to me since two weeks ago. School is out tomorrow, which is awesome, but I'm going to have to totally cram to make the deadline. After that, this weekend is prom, and here's a summary of the summer I expect to have after that:
1. Reading. There will be a lot of this. I have to read seven OT & NT textbooks to try to pass the competency tests in these subjects, and I'm excited to really get started. This is also my method of choice to keep learning about far out stuff like economics, psychology, and astronomy, which is fun. And maybe I'll finally finish Lost in the Cosmos. 
2. Movies and video games. I like it when I partake of these often and for extended periods of time, and, more importantly, I like myself more when I do so. I bought Thief II and Baldur's Gate II the other day, and I'm psyched.
3. Reading about video games. Seriously, if you can read this article without laughing till you cry, you're obviously female.
4. Band stuff. I thought we were recording this month. Maybe not. Whatever. Either way, hopefully we're playing shows. This is getting ridiculous.
5. Work. I started working at a little Bistro down the street from my church this week. I wash dishes and clean things. But they say I have quick hands, and so they want to show me how to make sandwiches. I'm game. I love that place.
6. The Dark Knight.
7. Friends. Panda, you still coming up this June?
Griffin
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| Taken from Clientcopia:
Actual dialogue of a former Word perfect Customer Support employee:
"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
".......Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
".......Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Aha, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you
still have the boxes and manuals and packing suff your computer came
in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it
was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."
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| I'm battling depression right now. It's sorta late, I'm sorta tired, I'm listening to some sorta terrible band playing some sorta terrible song, and I just generally wish I were somewhere else.
The last quiz was Saturday, and I'm glad to be gone. I don't want to be doing that anymore. I'm going to try to memorize the New Testament as a project this summer...but quizzing...I've sort of moved on. Though I'm going to try to quizmaster next year, partially out of loyalty and partially because hanging out is fun. I don't have to do it for the wrong motives, I don't have to prove anything to myself anymore, and I don't have to go through a Nationals that I probably wouldn't have enjoyed...I miss Donetta a lot more than I thought.
I miss a lot of people right now. I miss you, Daniel...I wonder if you read these. haha. I don't want to turn back time or anything stupid like that. But if you're coming here in June, that will be great. I miss a lot of the quizzers, most of them those who never quizzed Nationals-style and thus who never made Nationals, but who were the kind of people who deserved it...whatever that means.
I don't really know what to do with myself presently. I grant that this rings somewhat false, as I'm spending my time writing a rather aimless Xanga post. Chuck Klosterman says that to succeed in life, a person needs both a nemesis -- the kind of person who rivals you at everything, though on a deep surface, you like each other -- and an archenemy -- the kind of person who is the most utterly loathsome being ever. I have neither. I almost seriously believe that this is a problem. My subconscious certainly does. It's creating me a nemesis in my dreams. I don't feel good about it.
Sidenote, one primarily more frustrated than depressed: It bugs me when (and how many) bad songwriters succeed. I was listening to We The Kings a minute ago. I cannot imagine how anyone would truly like them. I also don't know why calling girls "Baby" in songs works so well, as I've never met a girl who liked this and never met a girl to whom I seriously considered applying the term even mentally. I think I write good songs, and I really have no outlet for them, other than Xanga posts with lyrics. Perhaps I'm impatient, or perhaps I'm misguided. But this is rather irksome. That's why it feels great that Brandon said he'd stick by me with it last night. It's a gift that I'd like to use at some point.
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Well, I wrote that last night. And now it's the morning. And, predictably, I feel alright. Hopefully Nate and I can hang out soon. And I want to read stuff and watch movies. Fun.
I don't think I really have a lot more to say. Life is different now, and I'm sort of still adjusting. I'm in between two of the most important and ... well, really, two of the most exciting, enjoyable stages of my life. And while I'm thankful for where I am...I'm uncertain, and it's easy to feel like I'm going through it on my own. So as C.S. Lewis suggested in The Screwtape Letters, I'll pray not for the crosses of tomorrow, but those of today. Most people looking in on my life tell me they'll pray for me as I go to college, as I'm taking courses, as I'm making friends, as I'm trying to avoid weighing 500 pounds...and I'm very thankful for all that, but it seems to me that they miss the point. Right now, I need prayer that I will be able to be used by God this summer, that I'll become like Him more and more each day, that I won't feel purposeless or alone. These are the crosses with which I've been entrusted today, and help will be given me with them if I ask for it. But God's not gonna help me deal with college today. I'm not there yet. So I'm in between, and I could use some divine help. Pray that I get it.
"Tonight, won't you come down out of your tower?
Don't make me dance all night alone."
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| This is sort of how I feel about life right now. (Taken from this site, which you should check out.)
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| This song is about God's goodness to us when we stray and how much we desperately need Him.
No. 123 - May 2007 to April 2008
The questions on my
mind are all for You.
"...Down the nights and down the days,"1
I spent these three weeks on my own
Caught in the misery failure brings.
So give me the words!
So give me more than a clever rhyme tonight --
(I've been turning away for so long...)
More divine providence inside these lines...
And I've never needed You more.
Were it not for Your heart
That I have barely ever known...
I'd be lost without You, standing here on my own.
Were it not for Your love
That I will never understand...
You would never take my heart and mold it in Your hands.
God, You know I'm shouldering my
Crosses and I'm trying to follow You.
But my eyes are darkness too;
I hate Your light for exposing my half-truths.
But You're the difference, Lord,
'cause we've never had anything we could call magical.2
So save me too,
'cause I have never had anything I could call life on my own.
...So Lord, don't leave me alone!
Were it not for Your heart
That I have barely ever known...
I'd be lost without You, standing here on my own.
Were it not for Your love
That I will never understand...
You would never take my heart and mold it in Your hands.
(Spoken:)
Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust,
who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.
Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us no one can recount to you;
were [we] to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but [our] ears you have pierced.
Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;
may your love and your truth always protect [us].3
I do not seek to understand so that I may believe.
"My hope is built on nothing else than Jesus's blood and righteousness."
But now I'm trying to believe that I may understand
Your beauty, Lord, and take the most miniscule portion thereof...
That I might love you back.4
Were it not for your heart
That I have barely ever known...
I'd be lost without you, standing here on my own.
Were it not for your love
That I will never understand...
You would never take my heart and mold it in your hands. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 - From "The Hound of Heaven," I think. 2 - A quote from Boston Legal character Edwin Poole in a deleted scene from the pilot, though he was talking about a girl at the time. 3 - Psalm 40:4-6a, 11 in the NIV.
4 - Ideas in the bridge are liberally taken from #123 in The Worshiping Church Hymnal, penned by St. Anselm. (Yes, that's where the title comes from.)
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