Servant's Heart

Alright, I waited too long to update. I'm six days behind. Let's see... Tuesday, I DIDN'T go to Early Morning Prayer ('cause I forgot and get tired). I went to Prototype, which, thank heavens, meets at Starbucks now, so when I wake up from my nap, and drive half-asleep to talk about God, I'm wide awake by the end of it. That Prototype was delicious. Caleb is asking real accountability questions, stuff that we actually deal with. This comes through his genius idea of asking us what we wanna be asked. I mentioned that I had had lots of talks with God about small groups, and he was like "Oh yeah, you're leading a junior high small group, right?", and I told him "no", and that I was working with God on getting back to a servant's heart.

The next day, we had the swearing in of the student council, which was a big day for me, 'cause I officially lost my title as president. *sigh*. My Myspace display name has once again been forced to change, and my lil' signature on all my emails had to change too. Now I'm a friggin' historian, which just means that I'm old and I wear spectacles (and call them "spectacles" instead of "glasses"). After school, I was trying to think of ways to help our Paradigm leaders out more (the servant's heart was gonna take some effort, right?), and the perfect opportunity arose when Pastor Tim asked the SLs to try to get to church early to help send out newsletter things. Lots of folding, stapling, and stamping was accomplished there. Cassie slacked off, so when I worked the Hot Spot, I was pretty alone. Pastor Nick asked me to take more pictures for the small group booklet, and I did so, which pleased his majesty. Sam pulled me to the side and warned me that Sarah, to whom I had been giving advice lately, was a manipulative person, who would try to feed of emotional highs, so I should watch out. I normally would disregard such talk, but this is coming from Sam, who's quite a reputable source, and doesn't like to make up rumors. Also, Shadow (our only black adult leader) asked me if I had gotten a haircut, and I realized that several church people had asked that very same question of me, and I think I found the answer to why. It's the small but important difference between bandanna-ing your hair, and straightening it.

Thursday, I came to realize that Mr. Harber had it out for me, at least that week. No matter who had been previously talking, or even who else was talking at the same time, I was the only one who got called out in class. Well, me and Jordan, but Jordan is kind of a given. Hopefully it'll stop next week, 'cause if it doesn't, then I'm just gonna quit listening to the stuff he says, read ahead in the book, understand it fully, then work on other things. In other news, I think I'm back on Mr. Beaumont's good side. I wrote a really good essay (with big words) that included a long description of myself (which I can't describe very accurately without a large vocabulary), and I'm pretty sure that he was impressed. After school, I mowed the yard at my dad's office (I hadn't mowed the week before, and my dad had told me that I would be grounded this week, but I asked for a way to be able to go to the movies on Friday, and he said that mowing at the office and at home would redeem my soul), then headed home to shower, and traveled off to Andrew's house to watch the season premier of The Office (POOR TOBY, YAY FOR JIM AND PAM, UNSURE ABOUT ANDY, ANGELLA, AND DWIGHT). After watching it, I talked with Cameron, Jillian, Zach Shey, and Andrew about the latest CFNI gossip. I knew more than Zach, and he freaked out about it. And we danced to a song by Kings Of Leon called "Sex On Fire", and debated whether it was describing an STD, a gender, or an uncomfortable way to go about the reproduction process. After we finished, I went home and perhaps fell asleep.

Friday, I went to school. Impressed? Mr. Beaumont quizzed us on quotes from an essay that we all read, but didn't memorize, so we didn't score as highly as we could have, had we known that memorizing the entire essay would get us the A that we wanted. Jordan and I discussed who else would go on our road trip, and we decided that Rush would be the choice, but then we rethought it, and came to agree that we'd have to see fruit from him first. 'Cause there's no doubt that he should be one of the people leading it. This would depend, of course, upon him actually leading in the right direction. After school, I went home, dilly-dallied, and planned to go play Hide-N'-Go Seek at 8:00 pm, but I fell asleep at 6:00 pm, and didn't wake up till the next day (which is an hour earlier than last week's Friday night).

Saturday, I woke up at 9:00 am, and I did little stupid things, watched as Alexandra prepared for homecoming with the help of Meagan Mulcher, who was dating Preston, but now I think they've broken up. I dunno. I got a text from Pastor Nick reminding small group leaders to come to their lil' orientation thing at second service, and I asked him if I should make an appearance, and replied "Duh". I went to see Eagle Eye with Jordan, Hiro, Michelle, and Rush. I told Michelle that since she was the only girl, she had to make comments about how cute Shia LeBeouf was, even if she didn't particularly favor his Jewish charm. She complied in the beginning, but gradually decided to form her own opinions (THE NERVE!). That was plenty fun. Then I went to spend the night at Jordan's house, and he, Hiro, and I talked some. Apparently Hiro had seen ghosts, and we explained how ghosts are demons, but he's having a tough time getting a grip on everything, so it's kinda tough for him. We left like fifteen voicemails on Michelle's phone on our way to Jordan's house ('cause what else would we do for twenty minutes?). By the time we got to Jordan's house, we were too tired to do anything, so we just went to sleep (retarded, huh?).

This morning (Sun- to the -day), I awoke at 8:00 am, thought that it was too early, despite not being tired, so I waited half an hour, then got up and got ready. I worked on helping Hiro to say the word "really" instead of saying "wee'wree". Then I was off to learn about small groups, and learn that I was apparently leading a junior high small group with Shayna and Kirk. I've been wanting to hang out with Shayna. Maybe her smarts from being 4th in her class at Rockwall High will rub off on me. Next was the SL meeting, followed by the SL lunch, which was held at the Meisters' own apartment. I'm working on getting to know these younger SLs. There are a bunch of new recruits, and they're all excited about Frank Peretti (that's likely to be a typo) and the movies based on his books. There's one movie that they talked about called "Bells of Innocence", and when they talked about it, I informed them that I have several roles in that movie, and they were amazed. I felt quite impressive too. Oh my, I flatter myself so!

iTunes has flaws. Does this mean that Macs do?

Wednesday night, I had bought that video game, so I spent Thursday after school being a geek, playing the Wii since I had no homework. I beat the game that night. What a waste of cash! Maybe I can sell it back for a good price since it's still new? So, Friday was a pretty average day, except that during break there were doughnuts for everyone (no explanation as to who or why). Following that, I went home and wasted time, then, when it was time to go to The Sociables (a geeky men's discipleship group), I was dead tired, so I went to sleep at 7:00 PM.

I woke up at 9:00 AM (is this a record for me?), and spent the majority of the day looking at various colleges online. University of Washington is lookin' pretty good to me (GC might be an influence). At around 5:30 PM, Cameron called me up and told me he was in town, so we went to Ghost Town, which was good. I haven't hung out with Cameron enough lately, 'cause the first thing he said after the movie was that it wouldn't have been any good without that lead actor (who was the same as the boss on the British Office). This was true.

The following day, we had an Upgrade meeting where we talked about the structure of our small groups and Paradigm and such, and then the SLs who were picked to help with small groups were asked to stand up. His words were "We also asked a few of the older SLs to help lead, too." I was pretty bitter about it, knowing that I was the oldest of the SLs, but I also had the voice of wisdom in my head telling me to shut up. I talked with Newman (second time in a row) during the prayer time, and it turns out that just about everyone is having a hard time with their Ones, so there's some encouragement. I went to WaffleHouse with Cameron after that, then to Wal*Mart, where I bought a new bandanna (but I haven't been sporting it 'cause people have been complimenting my hair too much lately). On my way home, I demanded answers for why I wasn't picked to help lead a small group (demanding of God, not pastors or anyone like that). Unhappy with the sensible replies, I continued to be mad at God, and ended up taking an angry nap until our media meeting. Of course, the media meeting was glorious, and we made what looks like a potentially fantastic promo for small groups (no shifting gears in cars this time). I talked to a few people, namely Sarah Massie (still don't know if I'm spelling that right) and Katie about my God-anger, and, naturally, they both gave me sound advice, which I halfway accepted as I went to sleep.

This morning, a Monday, I patched things up with God on the way to school ('cause Mondays can be crap if you don't have God there helping you). Ol' flappy mouth had horrible allergies today, so his eyes were flappy too. This kept him out of class more, which made my time more endurable. I asked my One (through calculator, of course) if she could come on our retreat, but she is gonna be at A&M that weekend, so I'm gonna have to try to get her back to Jesus without a huge retreat doing all the work (I know that that's exaggerating, but still). Then, just as my study hall was ending, a wondrous thing happened. I FINISHED THE OLD TESTAMENT! All the way through. I have read the entirety of the Bible now. Time to refresh on the fun parts. In the Connect class, Mr. Pryor told me that I could teach for three weeks while he was gone, and I immediately volunteered. On my way home, I texted with my One about Heroes, then I texted about God, and didn't get a reply. When I got home, I got my lil' bit of homework done, then watched Heroes, which was pretty dern good. Besides the bits of inappropriate things. Then Alyssa Kay-- or, should I say, Claire Bennett, and I talked for awhile about dating, my God-anger-problems, and the like. Lastly, iTunes said that I had $1.05 left on my account, so I went to buy a song, but then it tried to get me to put in credit card information, and now my iTunes account is gone and my $1.05 is missing. I wanted that song. I emailed them about it. Maybe hope is on the horizon?

Be Humbled

Tuesday was a bright and shiny day. I went to Early Morning Prayer ('cause they require it of SL to go once a month) and Early Morning Prayed. At school, I talked to Mr. Beaumont about my senior thesis, and he told me not to write on Dr. Seuss's life, but rather on just the interpretation of his children's books, and their effect/influence upon children. So now I'm off to collect and read all 46 children's books by Dr. Seuss, and to see if there's a further interpretation to be made of each of them. Mr. Beaumont also made out that I was trying to take the easy way out by dropping his class. My other classes were not eventful enough for me to remember, apparently, 'cause nothing particularly exciting is coming to mind. On my way home from school, I turned around 'cause I had forgotten a book, and something strange happened. My cruise control was set to 45 mph in a 35 mph area, and I had gotten a ticket for doing that before, so I pushed the decelerate button, but it didn't do anything. So I just decided to reset the cruise control. Unfortunately, the cruise control did not shut off, as it usually does when I hit the breaks. It just slowed down according to how long I held the brakes. So I pulled the car to a stop, determined to stop these shenanigans, and turned the car off, then back on. But even while in Park, the engine was revving, 'cause the cruise control was still going. It wasn't until after I pushed the pedals every which way after turning the car off and on that it was finally in working order again. Nothing else particularly eventful happened that day, besides the fact that I've been talking to Sarah Massie, a girl with a troubling not-so-distant past, and have been giving her advice.

Today, school was just peachy. In Government class, we were making fun of Alyssa for some little stupid thing, and I said something particularly loudly as the teacher walked in. Mrs. Williams asked me to come into the hall to talk to me, where she basically just said, "Stop being so loud in class", but in less words, and we came back in. Then I grabbed my shoulder and made a pained face as I walked in, thinking that one or two people might see it. But no, this was not meant to be. The entire class roared with laughter as I made my way to my seat, and Mrs. Williams was astonished that I would distract the class so just after she had talked to me about it. This was completely unintentional on my part, and I explained and apologized after class, but her reply was "You know your audience better than that." Next was a student council meeting, where I corrected my test, said what I wanted, and it didn't matter, 'cause I wasn't an elected official in there, so I don't have to do anything for them.

Later, I traveled home (by car) and showered and all that jazz, then headed to Gamestop, to get the new Wii Jedi game (I have to be partial geek to fit in with geeks, 'cause I can't be cool if I like video games, right?), all the while listening to a fun sermon by Pastor Jude Foucquier (whom I have so much more respect for after seeing him interact with Pastor Benny Perez at the YFN leaders workshops). After that, I hopped over to church, Chipotle in hand, and was offered the task of taking pictures for the small group manual that Pastor Nick was making, and I undertook the challenge. By this time, I was fairly convinced that I was not going to be asked to help lead a small group. During pre-service prayer, God started telling me about how I needed to be humbled, 'cause I felt like I was far enough with God to do a small group. Then he brought up the valedictorian issue, and told me that it was because of Him and His plan that I am even competing. "Be humbled. You are a servant." I had forgotten about being a servant in my petty concerns. Isn't that stupid? So then I thought about how many times that God tells me something during pre-service prayer, it often becomes the focus of the leaders' prayers, even though I don't mention it. Then I told God about how what He was telling me didn't fit the mood or the message or anything, that if He wanted me to tell it to Pastor Nick, I would need confirmation. "You are the one who is supposed to be confirmation for people," was the reply. So I told Pastor Nick during worship, and it didn't fit any of the night's mood, but I explained it to Pastor Nick afterwards (in a lot less words, 'cause I did it through texting), and he understood.

Senior Trip Runs Into Difficulties

Lets see if my memory can be jogged (sounds funny). Wednesday, I went to church (surprise, right?) and Pastor Nick asked me to film some parts of the service, so that's what I did the whole time. I also talked to Alex about the note I had written, and he admitted that he was out of line, and apologized. It was a late night, due to homework and things, but this is also typical of a wednesday night. The following day, if I remember correctly, I went home and slept for most of the day. It was a good day.

Friday, I bought my Government class doughnuts, simply 'cause I like it when we get to do special things, and this seemed special to me. We watched McCain's intro video and part of his speech. It was a wee bit annoying though, 'cause Mrs. Williams made assigned seating, and she, naturally, stuck the loudest and most obnoxious guy next to me, who explained to Mrs. Williams why the crowd was reacting during the speech, and he explained it loud enough that we couldn't hear the video. Since all of us ignore what he says, it ended up just being a blur of annoying sounds. I have a lot of patience with junior highers, because they're so young, but Caleob Taramona has no excuse. When I think of him, I think of a giant, flabby mouth. Mrs. Williams found the perfect person to put him next to, though, 'cause I disagree with almost everything he says. Jessica Rapascz (or however you spell it) came back from A&M to visit that day, so we talked for awhile, and she told me about the college life, and how you have to swear or they'll make you do push-ups. I told her that if I went, I simply wouldn't do it. I introduced to a few other seniors our idea of going to South Padre, and they seemed excited. Tyler was particularly excited about the prospect of boozing it up, but the rest of us were very much against such an idea. Later that night (nothing important enough for me to remember transpired in the afternoon), I decided that I wanted to go out and do something on a friday night. Since no good movies had come out in a month, and wouldn't for another two weeks, the only idea I had was to go to the Harbor. I texted some people, but they couldn't make it, so I went by myself and stared across the water, where some automobile was on fire, and the flames were great. I texted with Michelle the whole time (she was one of the people that I had not texted to invite), discussing various subjects. As I was leaving, I was asked if I had just broken up with my girlfriend, 'cause I was at the Harbor alone. I made a stupid answer then went home. Sitting and thinking for an hour and a half does clear your head quite a bit.

Saturday, Hurricane Ivan was tearing into our 'omes and everything we own. It stole my wallet, raised gas prices, and put Obama in the lead. I played Canasta with my mom for hours that evening, and found out from my sister that Lance Watson is leading Lauren Watson's discipleship group, 'cause Lauren has baby problems. I found this to be bad.

Sunday, I woke up (fancy that). I went to Sunday School, where Mr. Grice was teaching on his answersingenesis.com stuff, which was pretty good. He said that it answered any question you had about the Bible or anything. I looked it up and it didn't, but it did have answers for things in terms of defending your faith. Just not in-depth stuff. We had our SL meeting next, where a bunch of people bragged on me, but Cassie helped by disagreeing with them on every point, allowing me to look back at her with teary-eyed smiles, saying how funny she was. I went out to eat with Brett and Caleb (I forgot his last name, but he's younger and supposedly more annoying) at Joe Willy's, and that was a barrel of fun (more like a small canister, really). Then I went home and (SURPRISE) napped till the media meeting. Andrew had a real group that night, which he seemed surprised at, so we felt like we should undertake something larger. And undertake we did. We made a handy lil' music video. I can't judge it yet, but it didn't look like it met my incredibly, massively high standards. That night, I was up till 2:30-3:00 AM doing homework. During this time, I talked to a certain Sarah, and we talked through the problems she's having at school, and I came to the conclusion that if she was doing everything right and people still treated her like dirt, then there was only one solution. Take joy in it. be encouraged by it. James 1:2. I forgot to mention that I had forgotten both my Bible and my bandanna at school during the weekend, so if I don't sound as godly, that's why.

Today, I found out that it was my day for devotions. Fortunately, I still remembered James 1:2 and talked about that. Government was alright, but Mr. Taramona still annoys the (something...) out of me. I went to the office to get my honors class dropped, and Mrs. Horan reminded me of how I was neck-in-neck with Tyler, and my work load didn't seem like too much. So I felt guilty for dropping that class after that. I went to lunch, and Miss E suspected that I had ratted her out on her religious beliefs to Mr. Harber, but I denied this. Then, in Pre-Cal, she said to the class that I believed that she was going to Hell. I was quiet for the rest of the class, and struggled with trying to give it all over to God, but I kinda wanted to hold onto some of what I was feeling, 'cause Miss E was rejecting God, and I just felt that rejection, and I started to think that that's what Jesus must have felt. Anyway, I let go of it in Roots class (or at least made a good effort at it), then I had a study hall. It was fun, 'cause I was in the same room as the foreign exchange students, and their class was mostly English pronounciation, and I felt pretty advanced about it all. I had found out at lunch that Newman wouldn't be able to go on the senior trip, 'cause his dad found out that it was a party island. So I talked with Jordan, and we were thinking, why don't we make this ministry-focused? What if we went there, not out to fight temptation, but to fight back with evangelism? We'll see how that goes. Next, I had the Connect class, but today, the real teacher, Mr. Pryor, was there. I loved what he did. The whole class, all he did was question their religious beliefs, bring up verses that, in effect, could bring them to question what they believed about God. I talked to him afterwards, and now I'm pretty dern excited about all of it. For one thing, when he was doing this, I felt like I knew most of the answers for why I believed what I believed, and some of them were tricky. Everyone left the class questioning what they had been told by parents and sunday school, since Mr. Pryor would be waiting until next week to actually teach what was correct. I got home and, after eating a cookie with a Reeses cup in the middle (my mom learned from a friend), I slept for many hours, awaking to texts and blogs.

Eee hee hee hee *giggles*

My morning began with a good bit of worship time in the car (with no caffeine to make me energetic). Reflecting on the previous day, I prayed for more bad things to happen so that God could show me stuff through it. I got to school, read my Proverb in the car, then took my Dual-Credit English test. I can't make any judgments on how I did. During the class, Rush and Alex joked around for a moment about womens' "accessories" again. I wrote Rush a note. I got a 73 on my Physics test, and thanked God for the bad news. I gave Rush the note during Government class, and then hung out with Elinor as we got tutored for our pre-Cal test, then went to Jack's, where a man conveniently paid for Elinor's meal. The test was alright, and in Roots class, I wrote a story about Jasper the whale, who signed up for whaling class, but learned the true meaning of whaling by finding a harpoon lodged into his person.

I got home, tried to do homework but fell asleep, then woke up to go to Prototype. I told Caleb about all that God was showing me, and then we did our God-stuff, which was really good, then, after Shane left, Caleb and I talked about how I need to deal with my Alex-Rush situation. Good advice from him. Through talking it out, I also came to realize how to bring balance to my life. My main problem last year was that I did spiritual stuff until around 10:00 PM- 12:00 AM, and then started homework. This year, I need to make sure that I don't abuse my body, so I need to be doing my homework earlier (much earlier) and basically use wisdom with my spiritual schedule. Last night, Cassie had told me about how God was gonna give her new challenges every week to shape her into what she needs to be, that this would be her hardest year ever. But today, she told me that God was laughing at her, and she was stepping out, but he wasn't backing her up. I told her that that didn't line up with scripture, and quoted Psalms 55:22 to her, "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." and she didn't have an answer for it. I texted to Elinor that she needed to come to Paradigm's fall retreat, and she said that she didn't think so, so I told her that she needed some God in her life, and she admitted that God wasn't in hers. So we got to talking, and she basically tried God, but He didn't seem to meet her halfway like He was supposed to, so she dropped it. God is still at work. I can't wait.

One Thing Brightens The Bleak

Thursday, I went to Prototype, where Caleb bought me Starbucks, which kept me awake through the day. I talked to him about our senior trip to South Padre Island, where he had gone with a group of guys once, so he was able to tell me all about the island. Following that, I saw a truck that was on fire. It was pretty blazin' hot. Then I went to The Harbor, 'cause my dad and sister were there, and that, in my mind, means a free meal. So, needless to say, I ate some delicious Ruby Tuesdays that night.

Friday, I told Jordan, Paco, and Newman about the senior trip, and they were all excited about it. After school, I went over to the McDonalds' house, where Paco and Hiro (the Japanese foreign exchange student) were staying, and spent most of the day hanging out over there. When it got to be later in the night, I took Hiro to my house so I could get some clothes, then we picked Jordan up from work and headed to his house. I introduced Hiro to the Wii and all three of us just hung out and had fun that night and on into the afternoon the next day.

Saturday, after leaving Jordan's house, I went back home, and, despite having slept till 11:30 AM, I felt dead tired, so I slept through the evening until church the next morning.

Sunday, I went to church a lil' late, but that was alright, 'cause it was rally day. Popcorn for the kids in Children's Church was delicious. Following church, I went with Rugged Texas Landscape (Andrew when he has a sparse beard) to lunch with a few other people at Buffet City, then to Rugged Texas Landscape's house to watch some deleted scenes from The Office. From there, we went to play tennis in Royse City, then to get Italian ice. That tasted good, but made my teeth look like crap. I went to Rally Night, where some student leaders came with me, and we demanded for Pastor Nick to tell us who would be leading small groups, but he just told us to email him who we would like to be partnered with for it. I did so.

Today, Monday, marked my first horrible, horrible, horrible grade. The Physics test wasn't too bad, and time flew by while I took it. When I went to eat lunch at Jack's, the Black Hole group, most of which I had seen changed at YFN, spent the entire time making fun of female teachers' "accessories". It made me feel terribly uncomfortable, and maybe I should have walked out, but I wanted to wait and see one of them changing the subject and simply stop talking about it. But no such fortune was mine today. The talk just got more and more dirty, and as I went back to the school, I just felt horrible for what I had heard. I wrote Alex a note the next period, since he's the one who had confided in my during YFN, and I had poured into him, so I figured that I owed him that. I need to ask God whether to do similar for Rush. That put a damper on the next two periods. First thing in Civil War class, Mr. Beaumont passed out quizes on the first chapter of the book for the class, and, since none of us had read it, we all failed. I failed miserably. I doubt if I can even get an A in that class, and it's an Honors class. But I gave it to God right then, so it couldn't fester and open a doorway, 'cause it totally would. But it woke me up to the fact that I need to be dead serious about school. I'm glad that I gave that to God right then, 'cause the next class was the Connect class. The teacher didn't show, so, after spending half of the period playing hangman with Bible verses, I taught on the next section in the little booklet. It was good. Those guys totally wanna have a serious relationship with God.

Sharing Showers

It's late, so I'm in a writing mood. I would recommend speed-reading, unless you would like to live out every single highlight of my days.


Monday was quite a day. Having decided not to go to the lakehouse, I fell asleep in our regular house till like noon, which was pretty good, considering that I was up till 4:00 AM the night before. I lazed around the house for a few hours, then a song inspired me to go out on the town. I first went to The Harbor, where I like to go to think sometimes, but luckily, I ran into my adopted sisters from my Kenya trip, Haley and Lauren. I hung out with them for a little bit, but then they wanted to go out to eat, and I had just eaten one of my classic toasted bagel sandwiches, so I endeavored to visit Cassie at work. However, upon texting her, I found out that she had gotten off work like ten minutes ago, and was too tired to do anything just yet. At this point, I remembered the robot-clock I had hanging on my rear-view mirror (http://astore.amazon.com/robotcafe/images/B000ABT6ZY/103-2851484-0447057), so I headed to Wal*Mart and got some batteries put in. On my way out, I met up with Michelle and Renee, and was shortly invited to go to Renee's house to eat some barbecue, and meat from the McBrides' is always good, 'cause it's freshly killed. Good ol' Texas meat. Also while there, they caught me up on the Black Hole group, particularly our friend the Rush. Later that night, I fell asleep.

Tuesday, I woke up. My car rides on the way to school, particularly in the beginning of the week, feel so good. I pop my favorite tunes and sing to God to my heart's content. The Jap is still on the loose, and still extremely Asian. Dual-Credit class had nothing of importance in it, but was followed by a hilariously eventful incident. When Tyler asked Elinor "What's that on your keychain", and her reply was "It's pepper spray, 'cause my parents don't want me to get raped at work," Tyler's assumption, a perfectly reasonable assumption, was that the pepper spray was actually a can of breath-freshener, and proceeded to spray it into his mouth. Tyler was soon in the bathroom recovering, and the school called poison control. Needless to say, Tyler spent the rest of the class drinking out of a bottle of milk with red-hot lips. In history class, I whipped out my camera, and Jordan and I took pictures of each other when the teacher wasn't looking. We're hard-pressed for entertainment. That day in Roots class (vocabulary/creative writing 4th grade style), I tried my best to make a story where each sentence was completely unrelated to the one preceding it, using all of the words in the order given in the book. It turned out good. That afternoon, I napped for quite awhile after school (till around 8:30), then did stuff till late and fell asleep (for real this time).
Wednesday, I woke up to remember that my dad's shower was messed up. Of course, what really jogged my memory was my occupied shower. In this way, I was forced to shower later than usual, which made my dad upset at me when I wasn't ready as soon as he would have wanted. I explained to him how he had had a part to play in that little number, but it wasn't worth fighting for, so I shoved it up to God, and took off, taking Alexandra to school on the way, which made me late for school. My first few classes went by fine, but then came Pre-Cal. Hold yon hosses. Mr. Harber, a teacher who God sent to our school during my freshman year to save us from a tyranically insane woman, teaches my Pre-Calculus class. But today, he made a fatal mistake: he told us to "unlearn" what we had been taught in every math class of our high school careers. He became angry that we became frustrated at his words, which, for me, made the class easier to stay awake through, and therefore made it more fun. He used the phrase, "Stay with me" quite often, making the assumption that if one of us talked, even on subject, he was losing us, like losing a rabid dog on a leash, so he would pull back quickly and say "Stay with me." That phrase in big, bold letters was the only form of note-taking that I've done in that class so far. >> Fast-forward to Paradigm. I don't know if it was the few sips of Monster I had before service, or those Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits I ate to save money, or the fact that the first song we sang in worship was "Happy Day", but something was kinda nutty during the service. I went cr-cr-cr-crazy during worship, which always feels good, but there was a difference. I wasn't standing alone at the front. Other people were standing up there. Fina-friggin'-lly! I wasn't the only one pumped tonight. Before the sermon, Alex and Megan sang a song that Megan Wood and Jolee had written, and they were both good singers, and the song was pretty dern great. The message was awesome, challenging each of us not to get our schools, city, or nation saved. Just one. One to lead to Christ, then disciple and teach.

I'm procrastinating homework, but I think I may be pushing my limits here. This Blog was long 'cause I felt like making it long. Take that.

The Good Life

I saw a car commercial with a song on it that I really wanted for myself, so I immediately iTunes'd it. "The Good Life" by Tim Myers.

Friday, I went to school, which I was getting good vibes from. The devotional that day was about honesty, and, as it happens, Mr. Beaumont thought it a quaint time to ask people at random whether or not they had read the summer reading in its entirety. Unfortunately, everyone he asked said "no". He didn't ask me. After school, Emmy Nickel and I went down to Canton, where I worked a booth for a lil' bit, then napped till like eleven, then fell asleep again till around noon the next day.
My mom allowed that, since Saturday just so happens to be the only day where I can sleep in. Until five, I just did whatever needed doing, which was moving furniture, for the most part. After Canton, I went to the Lakepoint service where I saw Kollege Katie (college is misspelled on purpose), then went over to the Morises house where we enjoyed watching "When A Stranger Calls", which didn't terrify Michelle until we reround the very end, 'cause we wanted to check something, and she screamed like as to a bloody murder.
Sunday (that's today, mind you), I woke up bright and a few minutes late for church, where I interacted with an amazing thing. An Asian. A Japanese Asian, at that. This wasn't one of those crappy fake Asians you see around, either. His name is Hirokey (Hiro for short, like in Heroes), and he is so incredibly Asian! In the middle of Sunday School, he pulled out something with a screen on it to show Jordan. How stereotypically Asian is that? I was so excited and intimidated, because I know a little bit of how far above average Americans these Asians are. Anyway, the next service was Upgrade with all the leaders and Mickey Inzer (Dr. Inzer's wife), who does counseling at our church, taught for the meeting. From the minute she started asking a few questions, one of my hands was already involuntarily clapping. She talked about deliverance, and how to get to the roots, and the open doors, and a page of my notes was filled up (and I don't even take notes). It was so friggin' good. I went out to WaffleHouse with Cameron, Angella Jensen, and JRush, then switched groups to go to Fridays, from which I proceeded to Angella Musser's house with Trish Key, Nathan Wood, a bunch of others, and, later on John Penry. We watched a movie then went on a really good walk (hours long). We found an unburied tree on our way, and replanted it directly in front of the sign for a middle school nearby. After this, I went home (since Alex and Rackley both seemed unenthusiastic about the idea of me hanging out with them) and talked to my friend from Hollywood, whom I haven't actually seen in maybe seven years. We talked mostly about his spiritual life. He thinks that he's the worst Christian in the world. On another note, he also lives in San Antonio. Personally, I think that that's a sign that we need to take a road trip, and he'll be a stop along the way.