22-Apr-2005

Work

Man, life is hard.   Something really bad happened at work yesterday.   Right now, it is the second to last think I needed to hear about my job, though it isn't any better than the worst thing I could have heard.   I've learned a lot about this school and how it works.

I'm really glad I took that position out in Denver this summer.   I was considering applying for summer RA here and working in CIT full time.   I found out yesterday that that wouldn't be possible, but I had already decided to go to Denver a month or two ago.   I can see the hand of God in directing me to pursue Denver and not stay here.   He knew what was coming and as usual was taking care of me.

Due to some reorganization of technology responsibilities on campus, my boss got laid off yesterday.   As a result, at the end of this term, my position no longer exists (I have about two weeks left).   I'm going to see if ITS (who is now responsible for web development) will have a position for me to do support for current sites and possibly develop anything new that is needed.   I don't know if they plan on hiring someone else to do web development or if they are going to farm it all out.   That will probably have a lot to do with whether or not they could use a student worker.

This is an exhausting ordeal.   I don’t know what I’m going to do next year if ITS doesn’t have a need for me.   I don’t know what I’ll do next summer when I graduate if the temporary position I have this summer doesn’t pan out.   All I know is that God will provide.   He has before, and I know He’ll continue.

Sidebar: for security reasons, when my boss left, passwords were changed.   I can’t access things I need to finish my work.

Pattern?

My life seems to be a pattern of one event after another.   About the time that I get over one problem (my last few blogs), another fills the empty space.   God has given me the grace to deal with each situation as it comes, but lately, I’ve had so much pressure with final projects, the end of the semester, and now this situation, I just want a break from it all.   I wish time could pause and I could stop and do nothing.   Absolutely nothing.   Sit around.   And perhaps a few fun things.   Swing dancing, working out, fly a kite, go to the beach, take pictures…

It’s Dead

My camera died sometime in the past few months.   I think the shutter is sticking.   I took 44 pictures at a student’s senior recital.   When I got the rolls developed and looked that the negatives, there were 26 pictures in all.   Talk about mortality rate.   When I take pictures, between 10% and 25% turn out really well.   I lost have of them, so about 5% to 12.5% will be good (statistically).   I wanted a new camera.   This one isn’t worth getting fixed.   Here’s my excuse.

Other News

My group project in E-Commerce is really coming along.   All that is left is the shopping cart and checkout sections of the site.   Those will be time consuming to write and get working properly, but the site will be complete and will look great.   We put the header image in it last night.   Very nice, clean look.   The menu should be done today or tomorrow.   Pop that in, finish the two last sections and bang.   One final project down, one to go.   Then I can work in the 10 page paper and take home final.   I’m making progress, and the goal seems a little more achievable, but I still want to quit.   Too bad I’m a fighter and refuse to give up.   One day, that will be the death of me.

18-Apr-2005

Man, if I have children down the road, I wonder how messed up they'll think I am when they read this stuff.  It feels like I have all the answers some times, but my life proves that I don't.

It would be cool if you could buy a book from Xanga that had five years' worth of blogs or so in it from your journal.  I think it would make a nice gift to my children.  A sort of story of my life for them to read when they start going through the same things.  That way they can read ahead and see how my story turns out and from that, have hope that theirs will too.

17-Apr-2005

On Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of, Well, Happiness

So, I'm alive, and I'm free to the extent that I need to be.  Am I happy?  This is rather hard to answer.  I'm intellectually satisfied with the choices I've made.  But not emotionally.  I know it's where I need to be right now.  I'm three years ahead in school, but the rest of my life is somewhere behind that.  I'm a senior in college at 18.  Let's just say being around so many other people that date and such has made me tired of being on the outside of those relationships.  I've tried my hand at more serious friendships, and have learned a lot about how unready I am.

Yeah, I'm a fairly normal guy as far as my internal motivations.  I'm designed to want to be a husband and father.  But for now, I'm putting all that on hold.  I'm doing everything I can to keep from getting too close to any girl right now because I've got some personal issues to work out with Dad passing away and all.  A lot of this stuff has just come up in the past week.  I realized that some things you can't just get over.  There's things that some of my friends do that remind me of some things about my dad I don't want to think about.  I know I can't suppress these things (letting it build up screws up a lot of people).  I've spent a lot of time thinking about these memories and talking to a psychologist and family members.

I don't think that there is a set process you an go through to work these things out.  I just take the time to think and write about them and over time, ideas come to me and things start to make sense.  Talking helps.  Time is a big factor.  It can take me months to understand some of these things I'm dealing with.  And I can see myself maturing through the whole process.  But maturity only comes with time and experience.  Right now, I'm just trying to finish the semester and get the summer started on the right foot.  That's why I'm keeping distance from everyone.

Some day I'll be ready to date/court.  That day isn't today, and I don't have the slightest clue when it might show up.  I'm just praying that God would show me things I can do to mature and that when the time comes, He'll make sure I don't miss any opportunities.  I tend to be slow when it comes to His lessons for me, so I'm just doing the best I can.

Social Experiments:

I don't recommend this, but I tried something the past few weeks.  I stopped making an effort to keep in touch with many of my friends.  I did my best to not ignore them when they were around, but didn't go out of my way to find them or chat/call as usual.  The idea is that I would find out who my true friends are (they should call to check up on me because they noticed I hadn't been around as much).

Heh.   This part hurts.

Well, either this doesn't work, or I don't have any friends.  Not one person in the test group I was focusing on tried to contact me in any way that required any effort.  I even invited one to join me at dinner in the caf one night.  This person said sure, and then went and sat with someone else.  Yeah.  I feel welcomed.  It took me about two months to work out the fact that a relationship on any level (family, friend, acquaintance...) only works if both people put the same amount of effort into it.  I don't mean to be rude, but I feel down right insulted and mistreated.

Yeah, I’m angry at the world and under a lot of stress.   I’m probably blowing some of this out of proportion, but the following really bothered me:

I'm reading the book Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God by Dr. Donald M. Joy.  In just the little that I've read so far, it talks about the network of closest relationships one must have to be healthy socially and emotionally.  Well, a normal person will have 20-30 strong relationships (this includes immediate family, extended family, life long friends, and geographical friends such as coworkers, social clubs, and other friends that change when you move/change jobs).  At a glance, I have 10 that I can think of right now, perhaps 12-15 if I relax the rules.  I have a small immediate family, extended family doesn't really make a big effort to stay in touch, a few people at work/school that I know well enough, and only one person in my life long group right now (and he is my mentor).  I'm a little sad that so few people take an interest in me, when I've invested so much time and effort into them.

I'm sorry if this bothers anyone who considers him/herself my friend and doesn't think they're included above.  If you think I'm mistaken, take some time to talk to me about it.  I will gladly change my mind about you if you show me you do care and aren't just saying hi when you walk by (I consider that the level of acquaintance).  When you really take a minute to go out of your way to stay in touch or go catch a social event with me, that shows me you care.   I’m not saying you have to change your life completely.   I’m just saying from time to time, it’s nice to know I pop into your mind when I’m not standing right in front of you.   Sure, I think about you when you are right there on the sidewalk, but do I think about you when I’m washing dishes or driving to church?   Do I ever wonder how your day is going or think about sending you a note when you're not around?  I do, do you?

Is anyone out there?

12-Apr-2005

I appologize now to everyone who doesn't want to hear this.

There are many morons in this world.  It makes me depressed.  I posted a simple thread that didn't point at anyone about how there are two main practices that bother me about how some students drive - backing up on a one way street and parking in the middle of the road and putting emergency signal on thinking that makes it ok.  A few people have been/almost been seriously injured because students don't know how to back up correctly, let alone backing up in the wrong places.  Did  anyone listen?  HA HA HA.  Actually, a few people agree, but no one posted seriously.  There was one comment agreeing with me, but the whole car bomb joke at the end sort of ruins anyone taking him seriously.  I didn't.

This is sad.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm attending here because that is where my parents would pay for me to go.  I'm not happy with a lot of things at this school, and I don't see them getting better in the next 10 years, let alone before I graduate.  I really like my job here, I'm enjoying two of my classes this semester, and I've made friends, but the rest of life is really not going very well.  I really need summer to get here.  I want a break.  Most of all, I want to get away.  And I need major sleep right now.

10-Apr-2005

I should blog more often.

As you all will note, I'm up rather late.  Reason being that after we left swing dancing tonight, we all went to Steak 'n Shake (or however that is spelled).  I like everyting about the place, other than the incredibly slow service.  I'm told it is like that at every store, but I don't know.  That was my first time.

Dancing was so much fun.  There where about 20 people there from Trevecca.  We are definitly on our way to being able to start a club here.  I look forward to it.

In Other News

I look forward to this opportunity to work at a great company this summer.  But it is so far away from home and Nashville.  The highest concentrations of people I know halfway decently are in those two places right now.  And I could have worked it out to stay in Nashville, I think.  I would love to stay here, dance in the park at their summer events, keep up my swing lessions, be around a lot of the people I know (including family), find some good camping/hiking parks, and work down in CIT.

I guess I'm just tired of change.  I want things to all fall into place and not have to worry about big decisions.  I'm exhausted and really want a break from it all.  When I'm not in school, I'm working.  When I'm not working or in school, I manage to get sick.  Life's kicking me while i'm down still trying to figure out life without a dad here on Earth.  Everything is different now.  Holidays, remembering him being born and passing away in March, wishing I had him around to talk about his experiences at Trevecca and compare stories - all these things make me wonder what life would have been like had things been different.  But they weren't different.  They were exactly the way they where.  And the hardest thing for me to figure out is what now.  I wish I knew how it all panned out in the end, but I don't.  People say the point of life is that it is a surprise.  I don't like surprises so much.  I like to know that something is going to happen at a specific time and in a particular way.  That is one reason I like programming.  When I write a web application to do something a specific way at a particular time, once I work all the bugs out, it does it.  I wish my life worked that way some times.  I like a good surprise now and then, but I don't like living life wondeing what the next minute will be like.  I have my plans and all the most important points to me are falling apart.  Where will I live?  What will I do?  Who will I know?  What do I do tomorrow?  I just don't know. 

God, give me peace and patience to wait on your timing and clarity when the right opportunities down the road come.  And above all, don't let me screw up my one shot at life too badly.  Amen.

1-Apr-2005

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