Running On Empty

As i sit here and type this out, i am literally falling asleep.  I am so tired.  I haven’t had a day off from work or school since last monday.  Its been intense.  training for a new job is so tedious.  I wish life was like the matrix and all you have to do to learn something is pop in a cd and upload it into your dome.

For me, sleep is priority number one, if i don’t get enough it seems like i slip in and out of reality and lately i’ve been floating on thin ice that is sleep deprivation.  all i wanna do is sleep!!! but other than that, life’s pretty good.  Oh wait, hold that thought.  Id like to rip on any of you veterinarians out there who charge 200 dollars to sterilize an animal!! how many times were you dropped on your head as a child?!  its outrageous, it doesn’t even cost me that much money to visit the Emergency room!! Its an animal for crying out loud.  thats one thing that makes me sick. It seems like people down here treat their pets like human beings, clothing them, cutting their hair, PAINTING THEIR NAILS!!! gimme a break.  There are dogs in this town that have a better life than about 75 percent of people in entire world.  If my dogs sees yours and its dressed up or your holding it in a purse, i will not hesitate to let my dog devour yours.  just fair warning.

was that too harsh? anyway, college is great, except its definitly difficult juggling 2 jobs and classes.  Im standing out in my art class which is nice, but im not sure if its because im improving or if the rest of the class is just really horrible.  Who knows.  Well its back to class for me.  thanks for reading.

Busy

I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again. everyone should work in a restauraunt once before they die.  For those of you who do or have worked in the industry, you know exactally what i mean.  Its in its own world as far as job categories go.  At any given moment there are 100,000 things going on at once. greeting, seating, taking drinks, making drinks, checking tables busing tables, cooking, cleaning, the list is infinite.  for those of you who have never been in the business of waiting tables, or never will, think twice the next time you complain about a wait or how long it takes for your food to come.

I say all this because i recently started my second job.  Im working at the memphis based bbq chain, Red, Hot and Blue.  Great food, loose atmosphere, and even cooler people to work with.  I was a little weary starting another job based on what i already have on my plate.  school, work at Grace and now another job.  Its gonna get crazy but its the only way right now.  So i’ve srtarted training and tonight i was in the kitchen.  something i’ve never done before, its called Expo.  Basically you prepare the food and make it look good before it hits the table.  The kitchen is a place not for the weak. Its a fast paced well oiled machine that stops for no one or no thing.  Seeing another side of a restauraunt just makes me appreciate it even more.  Its only been a couple days but im already starting to love it.  hopefully i can make it all work.  but as long as the checks big, im okay.

Stagnant

I know the title of this post may be a little concerning for some people, but this is my blog, its my only outlet to write how i feel, so keep that in mind if you have questions while reading this.  Not trying to be rude, its just a forewarning.

I don’t know why i feel like im stuck in the elevator.  For some reason i’ve been letting my mind drift back in time, and i can’t help but remember how things were this time last year.  A lot has changed, or has it?

It was around this time that i was just getting settled in and finding my place in Plano.  I was scared, a young guy who felt the need to get out of the den and find my way around in the world.  I can only realize it now, but  i was severely unprepared to live on my own.  I can only chalk it up to Gods sheer grace that I survived here.  I arrived with no car, no place to stay and no source of income, yet some how, I landed on my feet.

But the trouble is i feel like now, even after a good year here, im still in the same place.  I have a job now, a car and a place to hang my hat.  But for some reason, without fail, i wake up every morning and ask myself,  ” Why am I here?!”  I can’t help but wonder, what if anything have i done here that’s of any good.  I feel like im just in the cycle, i feel like im in the matrix or something, being controlled by scociety, money and physical limitations.

I’ve also for some reason been missing home a little more.  I look at most of my friends from high school who still live back home.  They are content with what they have, they know where they live, they understand the reputation warrensburg has for being a place where most people don’t go anywhere.  However, i’ve heard over and over stories of how people come back.  They spend a year or less away from home and end up turning around and replant themselves back in the only place they know they are welcome.

Is it my time?  Have i hit the wall?  Its been a year so i can’t help but wonder whats next.  Don’t hear what im not saying.  I realize that being here has been amazing.  There is no way i could have had the same opportunities in warrensburg as i have here.  But it just doesn’t add up.  Why can’t I be happy.

Like i said, this is my place to vent.  this is just a manor of putting thoughts on a page.  there is no hidden meaning here.  So take this at face value.  Its how i feel.

Scammed

Craigslist, essentially an easy place to sell your junk for cash, with a twist.

The twist is the riskiness of the whole site.  The whole “lets meet up and i’ll give you cash for your stuff” is scary as it is.  Then throw in the recent police reports of people being held up at gunpoint after being lured into buying HD TV’s that never existed, and you’ve got a recipe for a G-UNIT ebay.  But not every scam is as scary and gun laden as these.  We do, after all, live in the age of computer technology.

A week ago i fulfilled my life long dream of buying turntables in the hopes of doing some light dj-ing, but then i realized i needed the money i spent for things of more importance, i.e. food and what not.  So i turned to Craigslist due to my past success with the site.  Sure enough i received a few emails the same day i posted them.  One man said he would buy them for 150 more than i listed them for if i shipped them to Nigeria.  At first i thought nothing of it and we started talking more.  His typed English was terrible, often misspelling common words.  He told me a check would be sent and as soon as i cashed it, i would be contacted by someone to pick up the “goods”.

Then, i was flippin through craigslist, casually looking for a new phone.  I read one article and it said something along the lines of “no, i wont sell to Africa or Nigeria- stupid scammers”.

Oh great! i quickly read back through my emails and put 2 and 2 together and realized i was being scammed.  Come to find out, once you cash the “check” you get, its not discovered for another few weeks and then you get a call from the fbi and end up having to pay all the money back.  Glad i caught this before i cashed the check.

Needless to say, i feel like Jack Bower, or a detective from csi now. once the check comes in, first thing ima do is call the blue!

Crime doesn’t pay kids, and as for the scammers…

GOTCHA SUCKAS!!!!!!!

(bad boys bad boys, watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do when they come for you, bad boys bad boys)

Breath

well, it seems i have bronchitis.

I was at my normal gymnastics lessons and was practicing wall flips ( running up a wall and backflipping off) and all of a sudden i was having real trouble breathing.  I took a break and got some watter but it still persisted.  I felt like i was being stepped on and couldn’t breathe right.  So i laid down on my back to try and open up my lungs but that failed as well.
Fearful i might be having a asthma attack or something i left and headed for a Care Now just down the road, after an hour i had a chest xray that revealed nothing of course.  What a joke!! 125 bucks to tell me nothing!! i hate the medical industry!!  But he did say i have sinusitis ( whatever that is) and i had a bronchial spasm, a mild asthma attack more or less.  So i have a temporary inhaler and some antibiotics,  but geese, i sure thought it was gonna be way worse than it was.  I was afraid i had pneumonia or something.  Oh well, glad i don’t, but im so ready to be over of all this sickness!!  what a terrible end to a terrible day…… i just wanna be normal and healthy again…..

Breezy

Man what an awesome day!! its like the perfect temperature.  Its that time of year where you can smell the wood in the fireplace and hear the crunching of helmets on the football field.  Its such a relief.  I love the fall, except that its followed by winter, and i hate winter.  If fall was the popular football player kid in school, winter would be the fat lunch lady who spits in your meat loaf.  I hate winter.  Anyway, so i woke up late thinking Dan was sick, so i missed Staff meeting, whoops!  So i made just in time for lunch and then headed back to work.  After a bit of research of color schemes to re paint the student center i went to Red Hot and Blue, a Memphis style barbecue restaurant to get an application for a potential second job.  did i mention i am really really broke!!! if anyone who reads this is filthy rich and feelin generous, please comment me and i’ll give you my address, i’ll take cash or checks : )  but im hoping i can land that job for a little extra savings money.

Then i headed out to do a little PK (parkour) training, im going to a jam down town this weekend and hopefully won’t look like a fool.  Will and i went to Bicentenial park in Frisco to train and we landed some new stuff i was really excited about.  I’ve got some reading to do for class tomorrow so ima stop writting now.  thanks for reading!

Random

once again, I’ve been on hiatus from my blog, i just can’t seem to write here every day.  Any way, i just thought I’d write about how my list of things to accomplish has been completed miraculously.

My parents loaned me the money i needed for class.  And im now in my third week of school.  Sometimes i wonder why im back in school, seeing as how my senior year in high school i almost died of anticipation for graduation. You see, i really dislike school.  It also doesn’t help when a professor tells you that most people who hate reading don’t make it through a 4 year college.  Great.  I hate to read.  But im pushing head on and am doing my best not to fall asleep in class. I am however enjoying my Art class, its picking up pace now and i got a 97 on my first project so i was happy.

And with August being over, student ministry is no longer in hyper mode.  Small groups have started and some normality and order has surfaced.  Tyler, our new worship leader is doing an incredible job.  It might sound bad to say this but its like he puts on a rock concert every time he hits the stage.  Its awesome.

Parkour has become a creative outlet for me to level my head and at the same time stay in shape.  So all together im doin pretty good.  Im gettin sick of this dreary weather though, its so depressing!! Well since I didn’t really have anything to write here in the first place, i’ll stop writing now.  thanks for reading!!

One good Night

So last night kicked off our back to school retreat in nothing less than explosive fashion!  This year we brought in Ken Freeman and his band from Wild Week, Nick Thurmond.  These two together are like Bat Man and Robin, like Peanut Butter and Jelly, its awesome, together they just form this awesome dynamic event no matter where you are.  So needless to say i was excited to watch the event happen.

We had around 75 students, all the way from middle school right on up to Seniors in high school, which about doubled our numbers from last year.  it was an exciting scene to see our student center crammed to capacity with hungry teenagers engaging in worship and intentivly listing to Ken preach his always powerfull word.  Although he did preach for almost 2 and a half hours ha ha i think they enjoyed it.  Shortly there will be a video up on the website from day one, not much to marvel at but it should be interesting.  Im excited to see worship tonight, im going to be literally running the show, as we have no light person nor powerpoint runner, and im also in charge of documenting the whole thing on video ha ha but hey, its what i do best!! lol,

Parkour

Holy cow its been ages sence i’ve written here, man, i guess i just lost the blogging spirit.

But today was a good one so i’ll write about it.  you know one of those days when you feel like nothing can bring you down.  its a good feeling, not one that comes often.  And lately i’ve been doing something to kinda channel my negative emotion if you will, man that sounds so cliche.  anyway, its this art form called Parkour.  It was developed in France in the 80’s by Sebastian Fucan, a legend in the free running world.  Its a discipline/ sport/ art form in which one gets from point a to b in the most efficient way possible while maintaining fluidity and balance.  Its a tough thing to do, and not for the physically and mentally weak which i have found from personal experience ha ha.  but none the less i really enjoy it.

Its sweeping the nation and there are small underground communities developing all over the place.  I think there’s a future in the sport and i just hope people don’t take it the wrong way, its not reckless, although there are always a few people to ruin it for everyone.  But people spend years before they do big jumps and big flips, and flipping isn’t even a fundamental part of it, thats all just personal style.

I can’t wait for the day when people are doing it everywhere, when they build parks for it, i mean, we have parks for everything else, why not parkour!!!but those are just dreams for now, but one day im sure it will happen.

Home….

I don’t even know where to begin,  the end of a summer, the beginning of college.  There are many thoughts racing through my head.  Memories from my trip home, things i wish i had more time to do, people i wish i would have seen longer.

Airports are such a depressing place, unless your a business man.  Theres always someone leaving something or someone.  You can smell the sadness in the air.  But for me the sadness came days earlier.  After spending a few hours with my grandma the time had come to say goodbye.  Its times like that in which I wish i would have cared about trips to california a little more.  As we drove home, visions of my grandparents filled my head.  I hate leaving that place.  No one should have to live alone, I only wish my grandma wasn’t so stubborn and would move closeer to my parents.  I miss my grandma.

Saying goodbye to my aunt was tuff too. She said she was getting sad long before i left, I brushed it off but under the sarcasim was a sadness.  As we neared the airport it became clear i was leaving.  I’d left before but this time was different for some reason.  Today felt like moving day.  I dated moving day, i cried myself to sleep as I pictured my family at home.

So tonight i write with a heavy heart,  with thoughts of family and friends looming in the air,  i always said i would never miss home but i was wrong, dead wrong.