Vision restored.

Yesterday I got a new pair of glasses. I also found out I had a broken TV.

It's funny though. I spent a full twenty-four hour period without my glasses and holding things inches above my face in order to see before I went to the optometrist. I was used to it, but I didn't want it to stay. Likewise I was used to being able to goof off, but I didn't want to stay lethargic.

That's where the broken TV comes in. Without the TV I've got no means to entertain myself as I normally would. Without the extra option to sit on my tuchas and play video games, I find myself sitting down and doing homework. I've been much more productive today already.

So my vision has returned on a number of levels. I've got some focus back and I can see. I just hope paper research and writing doesn't slow me down.

Vision obliterated

Yesterday I got to see my vision be obliterated. Sitting in the back of a pick up truck driving down the road, as I have done since a small child, my glasses got whipped off my face by the wind and into the road. All that's left is one torn up lens.

It was funny how it happened, and somehow I think there's a lesson in it somewhere. I managed to run tech stuff just fine--it's not much help to see when you're entirely in the dark.

I guess my lack of vision mirrors how I feel right about now. It's hard to get a move on on homework. I don't know where to start and I don't know where to step. I'm beginning to feel very much lost.

With any luck the Lenscrafters won't have any problem making a new pair for me by this afternoon. It'll be good to see again.

Ventilation

A number of small problems have boiled up into my life as of recently. One being an incredible desire for deserts and pastas, the other being video game frustrations. These are small at least.

I find that these small frustrations make their way into my life in small ways. I get mildly irritated at meal times and I tend to do a lot of whining when I lose at video games. Just last night I was pretty tense at Tae Kwon Do lessons. It really makes me think about what I'm like. It makes me wonder what I might be like if I had larger irritations pop up.

Feeding the soul.

Over the weekend I got a good, rare experience. I spent my weekend with my best friend. We played games. Well, a game. I bought a Playstation 2 and a copy of Shadow of the Colossus. I also got to see the rest of Firefly. Both of those things were great fun and really made me feel good. There are so many fun situations that the people get into on that television show. The lines were very good too.

I got the workout of the century as well. Patrick and I practiced some Parkour on Mercer's campus and in Tatnall Square. Adrienne came along for the ride, but I don't think she enjoyed it as much as we did. Three days later and I'm still sore.

The weekend was relaxing indeed. Now if only I can get my homework done. Homework is good, and I learn a lot from it. I just didn't expect to have so much for taking 12 hours. I'd hate to say it, but if my grades suffer, I might have to drop Tae Kwon Do and just work out when I have a moment or do Parkour for exercise.

Once I hit March I'll be over the hump. Not much longer to go.

Topics I plan to figure out (eventually).

Integration.

Perfection as completion and integration.

Sin and repentance as qualities of character, not mere acts. (which relates a lot to my perfection topic).

Death and Resurrection.

The Humiliation of the Bible.

How people who can't read learn Scripture.

How the body is NOT bad.

Most of these are the knee-jerk reactions I get when I consider anything religious recently. Recently in this case means the past 4 or 5 months.

Someday...

When I end the world, if I ever get the chance, I'll make it decisive and fast. And just before I do it, everyone will know that there was more to the world than what they first thought.

The first thought of the morning.

You never know what the day will bring when your first thought when you wake up in the morning is, "It's not fair. She's been up for at least an hour and a half longer than I have." It almost makes you feel guilty for sleeping so much. Now for some context.

Since the end of the last semester I have generally woken up at 9am. Sometimes if I've been up later I 'll sleep later. If I go to be earlier I'll get up somewhere betwen 8am and 9am. Deal is, it's carried over into the semester. Thanks to my schedule I get to wake up at 9 in the morning every morning. That gives me plenty of time to shower, shave, brush teeth, check e-mail (post in this blog) all before my 10:50 or 11am classes.

But Grace doesn't. She generally wakes up earlier than that to be at work at 8:30. Odds are she went to bed around 2 or 3 doing homework and then woke up around 7:30 or 8. Something says that it just ain't right. I guess it would be unreasonable to short-change myself on sleep on purpose just so I won't feel like my girlfriend is left high and dry on the scale of sleep. Poor thing is always so tired when I see her, and she's still got so much to do.

It's not fair, I suppose.

Times and seasons

There ought to be a place for everything. In this case, there ought to be a place for my X-Men Legends game, but there isn't one. I've lost the game case and now I have to put it in my X-Men Legends II case for right now. It's kind of irksome to me because unless I find the case, I will have to continually keep the disc in another game case or just not store it in a case at all. If I store it somewhere else, then no one will be able to readily find it without my telling them where it is, and if I don't store it at all then it stands a higher chance of getting damaged and I'll lose one of my favorite games to poor storage.

Maybe people are like that. If you put them where they belong they can easily be found by other people (and themselves). If you put them where they don't belong they tend to lose themselves trying to be somewhere where they obviously don't belong. Others might tend to notice something is wrong with the person as well. Or if you don't really put them anywhere (as in ostracism and other sorts of isolation, etc) then they tend to get hurt.

In other news, I'm writing my Senior Colloquium paper on sin and repentence. I'm entitling it zOMG, U MAYK TEH BEBE JEEBUS CRY!!!!1. I kid you not. More on this paper as I develop ideas for it.

Home for a day.

Sunday evening Grace and I went to my house and spend most of today there as well. We got in, I grabbed some leftovers to eat (Grace had eaten before we left Mercer) and Clyde was doing "experiments." Mostly he was just microwaving gumballs in water to see what sort of drink it would make. More on Clyde later.

Grace and I sat with my step-dad after a few moments of chatting with Mom and watched the last half hour or so of X-2. Some of Nightcrawler's lines in that movie are astounding. When Nightcrawler is discussing most people's reactions to him with Storm, he says, "When I see people react in fear and anger to me, I do not hate them. I pity them. Most people will never see anything more than what is in front of their own two eyes."

Nightcrawler's statement says a lot about prejudice, but it also says a lot about people's awareness of the spiritual. Most people will see the world--good and bad--and never see the God behind it. No one will ever see the God behind an act of love. They might in fact react with scorn or be defensive.

Storm's reply to Nightcrawler goes something like this: "Anger can sometimes help us to survive."

Nightcrawler's response is, "So can faith."

When I first heard Nightcrawler say that when I saw X2 in theatres I nearly jumped out of my seat and shouted. I've been on both sides of that coin. I've survived with anger and I've survived with faith. I must admit, my survival has been much more enjoyable when relying on faith. My faults are not greeted with scorn and loathing like they were before. I rather enjoy it.

I slept on my little brother Aaron's sofa and played Shadow of the Colossus for a good while. It amazes me how someone so small (you're a knight on a horse with nothing but a sword and a bow) can take down something so incredibly large (the colossi you have to fight are often as large as some of the buildings and ruins you encounter). Each Colossi is smart and has its own set of weakspots. The environments in which you find them and the methods used for bringing them down are all different and discovering them offers an immense sense of adventure. The most curious part of all is that once you've discovered how to destroy a colossus, it goes down very quickly!

How curious it is to me that even our biggest obstacles, as unique as they are, often go down with incredible swiftness once we've found a way to combat them.

Grace is such a sweet girl. She helped my mom peel wallpaper today so I could play with Clyde. She really does live up to her name.

It begins.

As I sit here beside the newspaper obituaries and I see the old and the young who have passed on I turn instinctively to investigate my own life, short as it has been. I stand at the beginning of the spring semester of my senior year at college and as I look at the rest of my life (past and present), I realize that I still have a great deal more to grow.

Not all my posts will be as somber or as serious as this one. But I also hope that not all my posts will be full of light-hearted silly fluff. Hopefully over time I will be able to investigate myself without the needless commentary of those who think they can help, but cannot.

I stand in the door: simultaneously an insider looking out and an outsider looking in.

Whiskey priest though I am, I cannot help but feel that I stand validated despite my brokenness.

I'll probably regret this post later, but with any luck it'll be something to learn from. There's more to say, but it'll have to simmer before it turns into words.

Well as they say, "Here goes nothing!"