All about Commiseration.

I got to thinking about this odd phenomenon I started my sophomore year. I called it Commiseration. It started out as a plan to get 4 guys together to spend time they didn't spend for an entire school year. Those 4 guys were me and my 3 roommates: Patrick, John, and William. For one reason or the next we were all up to our necks in stuff to keep us busy.

William was largely absent without notice. His room was storage, nothing more.

John was overloaded on school and president of BSU on top of that.

Patrick had a Senior design project and graduation. He was also so busy being my big brother figure that I'm not sure we actually hung out.

As for me, I was busy figuring myself out and hating it.

We all seemed to have a shitty year for one reason or the next.

So one day I decided that I had endured more than enough. By proxy I also decided that my roommates had endured enough. So I made them an ultimatum: stick around until the last of the four of us finished finals. That night at 8pm sharp, they would be present in our room. They would unplug their room phones and turn off their cell phones. We would then lock the door and let no one in for any reason. We were going to be roommates and most importantly, be together as friends.

We spent that night going over everything that happened to us that year. We took turns discussing our years, with the other three offering consolation or advice. It was more than a bitch-fest. We didn't just talk about what got us down. We talked about our expectations. We worked out our hopes and dreams. We discussed what went well too.

It was needed. At the end of the night (a night ended because of a Merpo officer knocking on our door), we all felt much better about a lot of things. In fact, I think we all agreed that it was probably the best night of the semester, and that it was a shame that it only managed to happen at the end of the year.

Commiserations should only be amongst people you know to some degree. You need to feel comfortable talking to them about anything, really.

Commiserations should not take place amongst mixed crowds. It can complicate things. Besides, there is some stuff men won't get about women--ever. Same thing goes for stuff women won't ever get about men.

Commiserations should occur only when needed. Standard criteria should include, but not limited to: inordinate amounts of bad things happening to a person or persons; the impending arrival of pivotal points in a person's life; complete loss of direction for any aspect of a person's life.

Not everyone at a Commiseration will fall into any of these categories. But that's ok. Those people will find something worth mentioning, even if it is only a pet project or something.

So there it is. Commiseration: what, why, and how.

Commiserate at your own risk.

I'm wrapping up my grad school applications.

I finally decided to stick my neck out there and try to finish my applications to grad school to get certified in education. With luck, the universities I applied to will have my information and I will just have to send them my GACE scores.

In the meantime, I'm going to apply for a substitute teaching position and do that during the day. I'll get a job working nights to supplement the sporadic substitute income in the meanwhile.

I feel like my the wheels of my life are re-aligning on the track and I can go forward again.

I'm still not sure what to make of my volunteer experience at the Catholic parish here. I'm still not quite in the works. I reckon if I were to boil it down, I'm applying to volunteer at the church. The youth minister has seen me at the general Sunday night event, and at a Bible study. Now he just wants to talk to me kind of one on one. All I know is, if I can't even pass par to volunteer for youth ministry, I'm going to get some kind of mad at somebody. Part of me wonders if I shouldn't just give up on it and go back to my teaching plan in its entirety.

So, about that Bible Study. It happened yesterday. I showed up at the church, sat on a sofa, and spend half an hour doing introductions with seven kids. We had to give our names and tell an animal story. I couldn't decide which animal story to tell, so I went with the possum. You can't go wrong when a possum is involved.

The Bible Study involved the Scripture readings that will be said at Mass on Sunday. We started in Amos. Amos kicks the crap out of the Israelites for being rich, selfish, apathetic slobs. Then we stepped into 1 Timothy and read Paul's encouragement to Timothy to be righteous, godly, loving, patient, and gentle. So we discussed comparison and contrast kind of stuff. After we went to the Gospel, which is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We compared the rich man and his fate to that of Lazarus.

In the end I think we walked away with the knowledge not to be greedy or complacent in what we have, strive to be holy and selfless, and (what was that last one)? Oh yeah! Don't go back in time and call a Jewish person a Philistine, or they'll drop all their stuff and punch you in the face.

Now I just need to figure out a good time to ask for a day off.

My first experience with a Catholic youth group.

It was startlingly similar to a Protestant youth group. There was a service. It was Mass, which made it Catholic, but like so many other youth services, they had seven praise and worship songs, which were played in a kind of helter-skelter fashion throughout the service. If Sunday morning Mass is one hour long, this one was an hour and a half because the musicians had no clue when to stop playing the songs.

The part after that was better--the part I consider real youth ministry. The kids queued up outside the youth room and were allowed in in groups of 10. They were greeted as a group by one of the volunteers and were asked a trivia question about something in Scripture. Mercifully, they asked a question relating to what was read at Mass. Then they were allowed to fall upon the table of food like locusts on a harvest. We ran out of cake.

Once the litter was fed, the youth minister discussed the Bible as itself. He touched on how many books of the Bible there were, how Catholic Bibles differed from Protestant Bibles, why there was a difference between Catholic and Protestant Bibles, and gave a series of doctrinal statements about the Bibles.

Then it was small group time. Each group did a sort of mini-Bible study where a Scripture passage was read aloud (ours was 2 Corinthians 1:1-9). Then the leader asked one question. The kids discussed the question for about 20 minutes or so. I forgot how bull-headed high school seniors could be. We sailed off topic several times. Ah, memories.

After the mini-session was over, the group re-convened and students were asked to mention something they learned in their particular mini-study. Once that was finished there was prayer (Our Father, Hail Mary, and a few lines sung from Ave Maria). The priest blessed the kids and everyone went home.

I'm slated to assist the youth minister in Bible study on Wednesday at 7:30pm.

Now rather than being pissed about not getting hired for not having experience, I'm wondering why the parishes I applied to thought I needed to have time to earn additional experience in the first place.

Self-Improvement and me.

I notice that the only time I really care about improving myself is when I have people to answer to. It's not like answering to your boss, or your parents. It's having to answer to people who look up to you and respect you.

In a few more minutes I will be heading over to my local parish to begin volunteer work with their youth so that I can tell all these people I have experience working with Catholic youth. I haven't met these kids yet, but already I feel a sudden and urgent need to make myself better for their sakes. I need to know more about more things, I need to be in better shape, and I feel a need to be more mature.

I think I miss that about college. In college I did ministry a lot and the pressure of that ministry caused me to want to push to be the best. I also had a close network of friends that I wanted to be better for. Those friends are still close, but the geographical distance softens the urge to improve.

My brother and I will begin to exercise regularly next week. We're tired of our paunches and we're ready to be in shape.

Oh, side note: I need my Maconites to help me in the job quest. If you stumble upon a job you think I would enjoy or if you get your hands on a copy of the Telegraph, flip through the classifieds and see what comes up. The city of Macon's website is helpful, but finding non-gov't jobs around Macon is hard. The website for that is not very helpful at all in that regard.

Commiseration.

Coming soon.

Faith from a personal standpoint.

It's been maybe 6 days since I found out about the youth minister position bombing out. I'm still peeved about it, but I'm not really fighting God about it anymore. I feel like those odd car commercials. My plans are wrecked and now all I need is that "Now What?" slogan to appear over the close up of my stunned expression.

On the bright side, I've started writing my book regularly. I write for a couple hours every night. I wound up re-reading the thing last week and I actually cut out a lot of what I had written. Most of what I cut out was hokey or unrealistic. Or some of it I simply didn't know much about. So I'm filling in the gaps with stuff that seems more down to earth.

My job isn't any easier to bear because of all this, but at least I don't hate my job. We're in the middle of inspections right now for most of the bakeries. It makes scheduling hard, and separates me and my boss for much of the week. It all adds up to a hectic time and not much of it for settling my other business. my GACE scores came in a week or so ago, so I need to wrap up my grad school applications. Unfortunately I don't know if the universities have thrown out my application. I started applying in June and had to wait until August to take the GACE (required by both schools). I don't know if it'd do me any good to send them the scores or not.

It'd much rather just visit the universities myself and find it all out. Phone bureaucracy is never fun. Plus, I find it uncomfortable to deal with issues that will lead to the termination of my employment around my boss.

Honestly, I'm thinking about just plain quitting my job. I know I don't have another job lined up, but I can't figure out a good way to get the time I need to get my life in order without feeling like I'm torturing the crap out of my boss. He's a great guy, and I actually view him as a mentor. But he knows I won't be with him much longer and I think he's ultimately waiting for me to let him know when I'm leaving so he can prepare himself for business work when I'm gone. Plus, nothing's really turning up as a good alternative to pest control. If nothing else, I'm sure Toys R Us is hiring again for Christmas. I could probably get re-hired pretty easily for the season at least.

I feel like I'm being pressed onward into the next so-called season of my life. I also feel like I've go nowhere to land. I'm thinking I ought to be like how I picture my main character, Wei Wu Wei. Whenever I picture a snapshot of him in action, he's in the middle of this gigantic locomotive jump. He's going for maximum height and distance. His entire body is stretched out--his legs are fully extended due to the leap he just made and his arms and hands are stretched out to their fullest. His face is wrought with desperation and hope as he puts all he has into leaving the spot where he is and trying to get to the spot where he wants to be.

Perhaps that's what I have to do. I have to jump away from the place that I so desperately don't want to remain and stretch out for the place I do want to be and hope that when I start to descend from my jump that there will be something at my destination to grab hold of.

Leaps of faith indeed.

Hier kommt die sonne.
Sie ist die hellste sterne von alle.
Es wird nie von himmel fallen.

In an attempt to lighten my general mood:

It happened again.

I got shot down for the St. Simon's Youth Minister position. Apparently I lack considerable day to day experience in parish whatever blah blah blah.

Now what?

My book. As in, the one I'm trying to write.

I realized after a time that I've done nothing to move my book forward. I kind of hit a blockage of sorts. It's not writer's block per se, it's just that I'm not sure how I like my introduction into the next bit. But I didn't want to open my document and then not do anything while I had it open. So I started at the top of page one and read my way to the bottom. I fixed spelling, grammar, and little oddities in my writing.

I found out something important.

I like how I earned the last two characters that are part of the entourage. I absolutely hate how I earned the first two. I also decided that I didn't like how I introduced my most important character either. The whole bit went like how I wanted it to go, it just went really really shitty.

I mean abysmally shitty.

It's like baking a cake you want to bake and then the dough doesn't rise or the icing melts off the cake, or the whole thing just blows up in your oven. That's how I feel about the first part of the book.

I also don't like how I introduced the atheistic character in the book. He's so over the top that he conflicts with everything else. I want him to be over the top, but even this is over the top of over the top. (I'm glad that last statement makes sense).

In short, apart from relatively little in the whole book thus far (64 pages), I feel like I might just re-write the entire first section. At first when I took my week off, I said I only wanted to get the whole book on paper--I'd re-write the parts I didn't like later.

I can't do that. If I don't stop and pick up the pieces and tidy it up as the book goes, I'm afraid the whole thing is just going to get worse and worse until it's an embarassment to hand out for criticism. A rough draft is something I can deal with. A hideously ugly, stunted from birth rough draft, I cannot abide.

So I'm percolating again to fine tune the details so this thing doesn't come out sounding like trash and leaving a stupid taste in everyone's mouths. It'll be fun.

The sun.

Ok, let's be serious. I feel stupid for doing this here, but I'm not really comfortable confiding in my family about this sort of stuff. I also don't feel comfortable confiding in others over the phone. Calls drop, family drops in, complications arise.

This past week has been really dark for me. It sounds crazy, but I'm starting to wonder if my current illness doesn't have some kind of spiritual link as well. I've had nightmares recently. They seemed so real. I guess it all started one night when I dreamt that I took my brothers' place in a dark ritual because I trusted my baptism to save me from it--and save my brothers too.

That nightmare scared me a lot.

It also doesn't help that I haven't confessed since Easter. I tried to confess last week, but there were so many people and the priest hearing confessions also had to say Mass that day. Every day during the week I'm too busy. And my Saturdays are nearly always full.

I've also not heard back from the St. Simon's people. It's been a few weeks now. I thought for sure I'd have heard back from them by now.

It all mixes poorly with me.

I'm still confident in myself and how I did at my interview, but all this waiting is stressing me out. I'm trying to open my mind to other opportunities, but I can't stop thinking about these kids. I really think they need me and in a strange way, I think I'm going to end up needing them. Ideas keep exploding in my head for fun ways to teach them and equip them with what they need.

It's strange how I feel so bad and so darkly about myself, but I somehow still think I can do some good for God.

Ultimately, I'm haunted by my lack of ability to do some real good in helping people. I'm also fearful of what's bad in me. My dreams recently have been of desolate places with dim, dusty lighting. Pain precedes a person's ability to do anything.

These dreams come in small fragments. At first a bird might be trying to fly out of a canyon. Then, a T-Rex is exploding out of a family's house and they hide inside a tractor trailer. The fragments go on and on. Little cubes of moments and lives forced upon me by strange white soldiers to be sorted through and judged. Perhaps I've been fatigued--in a number of areas.

My body will emerge from my illness intact. But what about my mind? My soul?

Hier kommt die Sonne.
Sie ist die hellste Stern von allen
Und wird nie von Himmel fallen.

In sickness.

For the past two days I've been sick. My temperature has been acting funny, my ears feel strange, my throat hurts just a little bit, and sometimes I get chills.

Also, I'm still doing my best to work since we're behind on pest control stuff. Today I did the traps and stuff for 4 bakeries. Not the best thing.

But being sick has given me quite a bit of perspective. All day I was painfully aware of how sluggish I was when my temperature went haywire. I honestly don't know how I managed.

At home I ate a quick dinner and then went upstairs to my room, where I promptly went to sleep with all my covers on me. Half an hour later I was soaked in sweat and my fever was gone. It felt strangely comforting to be drenched like that.

I realized that I am not quite unstoppable. I remembered that there are limits to my ability. I'm strangely comfortable with being sick like this because it humbles me. It was the strangest thing to be more concerned with finishing than finishing at a certain time or being able to make it home in time to see Scrubs.

On a tangent, I've not written any more of my book in two weeks. The plus side to this is that I've actualyl decided what it is my characters are looking for at each of their stops and how those items lead them to the ultimate goal. With luck I'll have enough definition to continue writing next week.

And I'm sorry for the lack of weblog. I know you people like to hear from me time and again.