I'm a bleeping millionaire.
I squandered an entire day and I still have ample time to do homework. What is this?
I need some friends...
...but then I'd have to dole out some of my new currency to benefit someone else.
Philanthropy tomorrow, miserly time-hoarding today!
(pray for me)
Friday, 27 August 2010
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
where
Here I am in Athens, GA, 88.5 miles away from my house, the farthest distance that I have ever set up shop from my family. I can't say that I am eaten up with remorse from my decision to leave home, but it is also the first week. It's so surreal to me that I have made a committment to be here for a year and a half, even crazier that I'm thinking about extending that time to work on a PhD. Nothing is permanent nor set in stone, and considering that I only decided to start UGA in the fall 3 weeks ago, I know that anything could happen between now and then. Still, I find myself getting restless here. Although it's a new adventure, new place, etc., I still see myself getting bored. So I am now asking myself, what do I want?
I want to go "away", but I'm here. I want to serve, but I am lazy. I'm starting to think that there's not one place where I can go that my laziness doesn't cosign on my lease. I don't know what I want, but I am starting to understand that wanderlust is not godly...God is Godly. I can desire to go to Athens, Timbuktu, or Kalamazoo for God, but this desire is still in need of redemption. So what, then, is my "mission"? I know it's happening now, but am I missing it? Is it over the 15.4 inch screen of my laptop and across the room? Is it in the study lounge with me?
I have felt so anti-social, but I know feeling "social" is not what I want, either. I guess I want to be open and put in places where I am being used. But at the same time, I have to see the value of character building while I'm here, achieving the mission in my own life. IE, studying without accountability, sleeping at a decent hour, reducing my Hulu hours. I guess I could start my internet reduction by ending this post.
But not before I say calllll meeeeeee
I want to go "away", but I'm here. I want to serve, but I am lazy. I'm starting to think that there's not one place where I can go that my laziness doesn't cosign on my lease. I don't know what I want, but I am starting to understand that wanderlust is not godly...God is Godly. I can desire to go to Athens, Timbuktu, or Kalamazoo for God, but this desire is still in need of redemption. So what, then, is my "mission"? I know it's happening now, but am I missing it? Is it over the 15.4 inch screen of my laptop and across the room? Is it in the study lounge with me?
I have felt so anti-social, but I know feeling "social" is not what I want, either. I guess I want to be open and put in places where I am being used. But at the same time, I have to see the value of character building while I'm here, achieving the mission in my own life. IE, studying without accountability, sleeping at a decent hour, reducing my Hulu hours. I guess I could start my internet reduction by ending this post.
But not before I say calllll meeeeeee
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
()
take my feet
arch them as you please
banish the memories
torch the steps
and melt this rain dance into a waltz
arch them as you please
banish the memories
torch the steps
and melt this rain dance into a waltz
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
icebox
The only words that I feel like writing these days already have owners and organizers, and I just put them on lease in my respective journals, blogs, and mutterings. I'm trying not to write about things that I only kind of care about, or about what I think will make an interesting story. Also, I'm trying to reduce the amount of "I" posts, i.e. the i'msomusingandmysterioussomeonelovemyemoself posts. Hence my draft to published post count has maintained a consistent 3-1 ratio, and I don't know if that will ever change.
We have a room-sized freezer in our lab where we store miscellaneous life things that we need. The door is huge, the temperature difference is huge, and the first time experience can be daunting (especially when a more experienced lab person pretends like there's no way out once the door closes, a favorite trick of mine). I used to run in and run out immediately, accomplishing my errand before the drastic weather change affected my mental state. But as the days have gotten longer and warmer I relish my time in the coolest place on campus. The regular temperature is 35 degrees F, which feels much colder inside during the summer days. I love the paper thinness of the air, the refreshing familiarity of the cold as it provides respite and preserves the life forces under our care. Once I have stayed in there for a while I am not wrapping myself in my lab coat anymore, and although I see the evidence of the frigid state in the frosted film overtaking everything, I feel comfortable. It's as though I have to reach out and touch something in the room to remind me where I am. It's like I've found an unorthodox home state.
I breath the same paper thin air when I step onto the MARTA train, or when I walk around Wal-Mart, or when I drive around downtown, or when I stay at home long enough. I think there's an inversion of logic here, though: It's possible that these harsh conditions are the normal, but I attempt to insulate myself in 70 degree boxes, an endeavor at which I have notably succeeded. Dashing in and out of this world, staring at it through a window, strategizing an exit plan...that's not the Gospel. Standing still long enough for your heart to break is not the end, either. It seeing the frosted dirt as beautiful, it's praying for the eyes to see this way. It's the ownership of and the covenant with the fat, the loud, the uncouth, the offensive, the ungrateful, the unjustified; these become our kin. It's understanding that God is most glorified, his Spirit is the most preserved in the cold and dry, and we can work the best under these conditions. It's setting up shop so that these harsh truths seep into your skin and alter your definition of beauty, of good news, of home. It's a slow but steady destruction of comfort. It's the yearning for redemption in the end but the ability to see it in the middle, in the in between. It's breathing in shards of ice and pain and breathing out Eternity.
We have a room-sized freezer in our lab where we store miscellaneous life things that we need. The door is huge, the temperature difference is huge, and the first time experience can be daunting (especially when a more experienced lab person pretends like there's no way out once the door closes, a favorite trick of mine). I used to run in and run out immediately, accomplishing my errand before the drastic weather change affected my mental state. But as the days have gotten longer and warmer I relish my time in the coolest place on campus. The regular temperature is 35 degrees F, which feels much colder inside during the summer days. I love the paper thinness of the air, the refreshing familiarity of the cold as it provides respite and preserves the life forces under our care. Once I have stayed in there for a while I am not wrapping myself in my lab coat anymore, and although I see the evidence of the frigid state in the frosted film overtaking everything, I feel comfortable. It's as though I have to reach out and touch something in the room to remind me where I am. It's like I've found an unorthodox home state.
I breath the same paper thin air when I step onto the MARTA train, or when I walk around Wal-Mart, or when I drive around downtown, or when I stay at home long enough. I think there's an inversion of logic here, though: It's possible that these harsh conditions are the normal, but I attempt to insulate myself in 70 degree boxes, an endeavor at which I have notably succeeded. Dashing in and out of this world, staring at it through a window, strategizing an exit plan...that's not the Gospel. Standing still long enough for your heart to break is not the end, either. It seeing the frosted dirt as beautiful, it's praying for the eyes to see this way. It's the ownership of and the covenant with the fat, the loud, the uncouth, the offensive, the ungrateful, the unjustified; these become our kin. It's understanding that God is most glorified, his Spirit is the most preserved in the cold and dry, and we can work the best under these conditions. It's setting up shop so that these harsh truths seep into your skin and alter your definition of beauty, of good news, of home. It's a slow but steady destruction of comfort. It's the yearning for redemption in the end but the ability to see it in the middle, in the in between. It's breathing in shards of ice and pain and breathing out Eternity.
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