Padfoot240.com

So I have a monster blog post cooking right now.  A small set up is that I decided to check out Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins a little bit ago.  Wow.  So much to say about that.  But reading it has prompted me to dig a little deeper into traditional Christian beliefs, theology, and what do we really know about it all.  Just talking with others about it has stirred something that I find to be quite alarming and I want to look into it.  So be on the look out for that…

In other news:

• I am graduating college in about a month
• I have secured my first full time job for after I graduate
• I am getting better at Starcraft

If you haven’t figured out by now, I am a huge fan of Don Miller.  He is a fantastic author.  His writing has changed my life in multiple ways.  But that’s all old news if you read my blog.  What is new with Donald Miller these days?  Well other than keeping a phenomenal blog alive with daily writings, he has been making Blue Like Jazz into a movie.  Not some huge action packed hollywood blockbuster, but a smaller movie that really sticks to the book’s theme: nonreligious thoughts on Christianity.  If you haven’t read Blue Like Jazz, go read it now, and then watch the movie when it comes out.  It’s a great book, especially for someone without much faith in God in my opinion.  A series of essays and thoughts that go into detail about the core of Christianity.  This book is just not promoted enough.

Anyway, so on September 16th 2010 Don announced that even though the movie was written, crewed, and casted, it was going to be canceled because of a lack of funding.  What?  I had been too excited about this project to see it crash and burn due to something as trivial as funding.  You know what my reaction was to this?  “Where can I donate?” I wanted to see this masterpiece of a book in its movie form even if I had to fund it myself.  And it looks like a lot of other people did too.

A kickstarter was made with the idea that we the fans could come up with the $125,000 needed to fund the Blue Like Jazz movie.  Fun fact, if you watch the video on the kickstarter page, you can actually see my comment I left is featured about 1 minute in.  Cool!  There are even some incentives if you donate towards the movie.  After my donation, I am now an official Associate Producer of the Blue Like Jazz movie.  My name is even in the credits!

Well we had just under a month to complete the funding, and today we did it.  We are actually at $127,866 funded so maybe the movie will be just a little bit better.  Don can add in a car chase scene, CGI sexy carrot in, or something.

What a good story it would be.  Investors back out.  The movie is put on hold.  But the fans say, “No!  We will fund this movie.”

Well we did it.  So look out for Blue Like Jazz the movie coming soon.

I’ve been frequenting a website called Reddit(caution: adult content in content marked with nsfw) lately.  I think it is kind of cool the way it is structured.  Users post some kind of content, pictures/text/links/video/etc. and everyone else in the community gets to ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’ the content.  The more upvotes a piece of content gets, the more it is pushed towards the first page of content.  Downvotes work in the opposite manner.  Thus, the community actively is constantly receiving/giving new content and it shares the coolest bits of it with everyone else while avoiding the boring/trashy/duplicate content.  You can also include a comment on that content and the same vote policy also governs the comments on each piece of content.  I’m always a big fan of bottom-up structure instead of top-bottom; I think it provides the users with enough power to play within the system while disallowing the higher-ups from playing with the system.  However, it does have the same major problem that a solely-community-driven community encounters: the hive-mind.  The hive-mind refers “to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.”  This isn’t always a bad thing or even wrong for that matter.  I mean I guess humans, for the most part, have a hive-minded attitude towards murder, rape, abuse, etc.  That’s good.  People, by nature, tend to surround themselves with mostly people who think similarly to themselves to some degree.  The problem begins when a hive-mind starts to become hostile to others not subscribing to it.  Reddit has a notoriously hostile hive-mind mostly pertaining to a couple of specific issues:

• Christianity: Christians are seen as stupid, ignorant, mindless people.  The subreddit page about atheism is one of the more popular pages on reddit, but it contains more anti-Christianity content than pro-atheist content.  To a lesser extent, the same is also applied to Islam.  Atheists are seen as enlightened heroes.
• Republicans: Again, republicans are seen as stupid, ignorant, clueless people that apparently want nothing more than to destroy America and tax all of its citizens to death.
• American International Policy: Any time America pokes around in another country’s affairs, it is terrible and a breach of their sovereignty.  Most recently, Isreal’s actions have been close to murder and America’s support of Israel is a terrible thing.
• The Police: The police are huge jerks with too much power and are always tazing, shooting, beating, and killing random people for no reason.

Here is a particular example I thought was rather harsh.  The picture was posted and this comment had received the most upvotes-this is the comment most people thought that others should see first.

I think, that on some level, religious indoctrinators are PERFECTLY AWARE of how nonsensical and ridiculous the beliefs they seek to perpetuate are. That is WHY they so eagerly seek out the young. On some level in their minds, they know PERFECTLY DAMN WELL that if they wait until a young person has developed skills in critical thinking and skepticism, that the indoctrination won’t ‘take’.

I think that makes them the worst kind of cynical double thinking hypocrites.

This is the reddit hive-mind’s view of Christianity.  How sad.  How terrible.  We are scary close-minded(literaly) people who prey upon children in order to brainwash them into believing ‘nonsensical’ myths.  I’m torn whenever I see people on reddit post things like this.  Part of me is furious.  Really?  If you honestly believe that we think our own beliefs ridiculous, prey on kids, can’t stand up to critical thinking, or even that we are responsible for holding back science(that’s my favorite one) I honestly have to say that you are the indoctrinated one.  I’m sorry that as a parent, they try to raise their child to believe what they think is the right way to live.  Calling an indoctrination foul has its place, but not as a blanket statement!

Another part of me is sad for them.  Did most of these people experience some sort of childhood where Christianity was shoved down their throats all the time?  I feel for those people, I really do.  They see Christianity as this terrible force that comes to enslave and Jesus as this hardened school teacher punishing you for every sin.  I pray they realize that that wasn’t Christianity.  And this picture isn’t either.  I pray they encounter Jesus in his reality through some other means.  I pray they are actively searching and not just shouting out indoctrination fouls while they themselves are indoctrinated with another religion.  You can find all the examples of harsh, rule-founded people claiming to show Christ’s love to others, but that doesn’t make Christ’s love any less real.  You can take all the Bible verses you want out of context in an attempt to make the Bible say things it isn’t, but in the end you can’t escape Christ’s love found right there in the word.

Now, I am not hating on reddit.  I really enjoy it; I particularly really love the gaming and lolcat sections.  But it does suffer from this hive-mind which can make sharing differing thoughts on reddit sometimes just downright impossible.  Whether your differing content gets downvoted so far that it can’t see the light of day or everyone gets nasty in the comment section, it is just hard to survive once the hive-mind has targeted you.  If you want a pretty well written thought on reddit, I would suggest you read this comment by an actual user.  But this aspect to the community is probably why I, and many others, will always remain a reader and never a contributor.

So this was originally posted two years ago, http://padfoot240.com/blog/2008/03/23/easter/, but the same thoughts still go through my head.

“We love life. All life, but especially sentient life forms, like Homo sapiens. Your species. This is a very beautiful planet. A priceless work of art.”

Suddenly, without warning, the Ellimist did it again. He opened space.  We were no longer standing in the Yeerk pool. We were no longer underground at all. We were underwater. Deep underwater. But the water did not seem to touch my skin. And when I breathed, there was air. Still, I felt fear tingle the back of my neck.  Suspended in the water, but dry. The Ellimist could no longer be seen. We were floating above a coral reef. And everything was moving again.  All around us, fish swam by in swift-darting schools. Fish in every color and shape, reflecting the dappled sunlight from above. Sharks prowled. Stingrays seemed to fly. Squid pulsated. Crabs scuttled across fabulous extrusions of coral. Tuna as big as sheep drifted past. Swift, grinning dolphins raced by in pursuit of their next meal.

LOVELY.

The Ellimist’s voice once more seemed to grow from deep within my own heart.

LOVELY.

And then, as quickly as we had been plunged into the ocean, we were drifting above the waving golden grass of the African savannah. A pride of lions lazed in the sun below us, looking sleepily content. Wildebeest and gazelles and impalas grazed, then broke into wild, springing, bouncing races that forced you to smile at the sheer energy of it all.  There were hyenas, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, baboons, zebras. Hawks and eagles and buzzards wheeled overhead.

LOOK AT IT.

Then, in an instant, deep jungle. A lithe jaguar prowled while monkeys chattered in the tree canopy above. Snakes as long as a person slithered across tree branches. The air reeked of the heavy perfume of a million flowers. We heard the sounds of frogs, insects, monkeys, and wild, screaming birds.

IN ALL THE UNIVERSE, NO GREATER BEAUTY. IN A THOUSAND, THOUSAND WORLDS, NO GREATER ART THAN THIS.

Then the Ellimist showed us the human race. We flew, invisible, through the steel-and-glass canyons of New York City.  We drifted above villages at the edges of jungle rivers. We watched a rock concert in Rio de Janeiro, and a political meeting in Seoul, and a soccer game in Durban, and an open-air market in the Philippines.

HUMANS. CRUDE. PRIMITIVE. BUT CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

Suddenly, all the movement stopped. We were staring at a picture. A painting. I’d seen the painting somewhere before.

It was a wild swirl of color. A painting of purple flowers. Irises, I think, although I’m no big expert on flowers. The artist had seen the beauty of those flowers and captured some small bit of it on canvas.

CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

The beauty of our world amazes me.  From Rock Habor’s sermon last night, to reading a book today, it never ceases to amaze me just how wonderful it all was created.  Even more amazing I think, and so does the Ellimist it seems, is that we have been endowed with the ability to understand the beauty/glory of it all.

Bonus points if you know what book it came from; the Ellimist kind of gives it away…

Sometimes I think that the ‘rockstar’ Christians tend to lose the whole point that we need God. Since their whole job is to supply us with answers, they forget sometimes that they don’t need to have an answer for everything. God is too big for us, and His ways are mysterious to us.

Has Pat Robertson tried to answer every question to the point where He isn’t getting lost in the mystery of who God is anymore? Can he not feel compassion for people other than ‘legitimate Christians’? He has to explain it away with hateful words?

What is wrong with just feeling sad for the people of Haiti? Feel pain, cry out to God. Gosh it’s okay to do that you know? A huge part of Psalms are all laments to God. “Why is this happening God?! What is going on?!”

Mr. Robertson, I truly believe that you love and want to serve our God. But I think you missed your own goal saying those words today. You don’t need to control everything, in fact God tells us to forget about that. Give it to Him. God is here. God loves you. That’s what He is all about. Not punishing some tribe that may have made a pact with the devil. Not killing thousands of people who have turned their back on Him. He loves us and is currently on His way back here to fix this mess we are in.

I’d also like you to read this.
http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/

Don’t say hateful things to anyone, especially not our brother Pat. May grace and peace fill your lives. We are humanity, and we are all aching to return to God. But, we cannot let our pain distract us from preparing ourselves for God’s return.

So my first quarter of being a third year ended with some surprises. For instance, I found out I don’t have to take a million prerequisites for my concentration in Video Games. That’s a relief, I didn’t know how I was going to get into all of them. Another was the fact that I can ALSO add a focus to my major, if I just take a certain set of classes where I have a choice in the matter. Yes, that’s right; I could graduate with a degree in Information and Computer Science focusing in Artificial Intelligence with a concentration in Video Game Technology and Culture. And if all goes well, that’s what it will be.
The last surprise wasn’t a pleasant one however. I got my grades back and I joined the D club. I knew Computer Graphics wasn’t my class, but I wish it was a bit more balanced. We were forced to use OpenGL in C++. I wish we were free to just use OpenGL in whatever language we were familiar with. Ugh, I knew going into the final I didn’t have a hot grade but I felt I dominated the final and was hopeful to get at least a C. Oh well. I have plans to retake it later, so I’m gearing up for round 2! Why should I regret the things I can’t change now? Oh that’s a good one, lemme write that down…
Overall, it wasn’t a terrible quarter. A, B, B, D. And I actually really enjoyed that class I got an A in. I’m taking it’s next class as an elective just for kicks next quarter!

Okay, anyway. Finals week was insanely fun. It almost didn’t feel like I studied(Mom I promise I did study). During one of our breaks, a discussion took over the apartment and we talked about a key characteristic of God in our lives. Does God make us happy? While our discussion was essentially the same point being argued from two seemingly conflicting viewpoints I thought it was really interesting. We, essentially, agreed upon the fact that, no God doesn’t make us happy in every situation in life but He does supply us with an underlying feeling of being fulfilled in a spiritual sense or even just the fact that He loves us. Temporal happiness is vastly different than an everlasting happiness, what we were just calling joy. Happiness, Joy, psh they’re the same right? I don’t think so, and I think that is why our discussion had us arguing the same point against itself.
So what is the difference between the two? Well, we were kind of on the right track in our talk. Happiness is kind of temporal, it comes and goes. Happiness is based upon circumstances that may or may not be in our control. The dictionary defines it as “a pleasurable or satisfying experience.” Happiness, read with the root of the word as ‘hap’ or ‘chance’, is an emotional response to our current status. This root of hap is very important, much of our lives and experiences are chance and luck and these experiences effecting our emotions is how we judge our happiness or lack of happiness.
Believe it or not, God didn’t intend for us to feel happiness all the time; there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). And weeping and mourning don’t sound too happy if you ask me.

Joy, on the other hand, is a state of being rather than a state of circumstances. This state of being can be found in a particular circumstance, but it is not limited to it. We can think of joy as a strong foundation built to support the healthy emotions, including happiness. The long-range evidence of joy is general gratitude, contentment, optimism, and a sense of freedom. When we are in joy, we are free to experience this elevation at all times and not just when life is going our way. Another difference from happiness, being in a state of joy doesn’t have to be induced by a positive experience.
James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Isn’t that amazing? We could be terribly unhappy going through trials, but we can be joyful knowing how these trials will shape us. How strong is that joy? How free are you when you can be so joyful during such hard times?

God knew that some circumstances would make us happy and others would make us sad, and that there is a time for each to affect us. But God also desires us to be joyful, to feel fulfilled, in all circumstances no matter what we might feeling emotionally. God gives us this joy because we are made complete in God’s love. And God’s love is forever, a constant love. That feeling of joy is the same euphoric emotion of happiness but it isn’t fleeting, it lasts long after the circumstances do. You might find this joy in your first child keeping you up at night for 3 months, or volunteering at a local youth group and having to help and deal with the younger kids and their drama, or maybe skipping your senior prom to help raise awareness about a war in Uganda with a bunch of strangers for five days, or that God is in fact real, He loves you and He wants to relate with you.

I might be very unhappy about getting a D in Computer Graphics, but I remain joyous throughout my college years simply because I love who I am growing to be, I fall in love with my friends over and over again, I marvel at the things I learn outside classes, and I know that everything will turn out just perfect in the end.

So lately I’ve been reading a good book, listening to some good music, having some good conversations. I just thought I’d let loose some good snippets that came up. I hope you enjoy them and take them seriously as much as I do.

Lets kick things off with the new Switchfoot album. While it wasn’t their best, it definitely wasn’t their worst. One song in particular whose lyrics I find very profound: Your Love is a Song.

Your love is a symphony
All around me
Running through me

Your love is a melody
Underneath me
Running to me

Your love is a song

I love the idea of God’s love being compared to a song because many a time, nothing but an expression in a song can spell out what is being felt. And something so awe inspiring as complete Love can’t really be described in a practical sense.

Talking to a good friend of mine, the idea of what a best friend is came up. I wasn’t really prepared to define just what one is, so I sort of just listed out what I can expect out of one that differs from other people.

Someone you can tell anything to, and not have to worry about it

Someone you can call whenever you want to or need them

Someone who doesn’t talk trash on you no matter what

Someone you feel at home with hanging out

And someone who, no matter how long you’ve been apart, it doesn’t feel like anything has changed when you hang out after a hiatus

So for all of you close friends of mine, this is what I expect of you. Alternatively, all of you who want to get to know me better, this is what I will expect of you.

I just polished off another trilogy in Ted Dekker’s ‘Books of History Universe’, Sinner. I think I liked it the best out of the three(Showdown, Saint, and Sinner), and had some amazing things to say about the reality of God.

“Tonight she’d come face-to-face with the rawest kind of evil and this feeling, this terror…it had made a mockery of her worst nightmare. Then she’d become perfectly aware that this evil resided in her. Was a part of her nature. Was a disease that she had contracted and protected like a deep pit might protect the fungus growing on its walls. She drowned in the black lake of her own soul.”

“The main thing was that for the first time in her life she became completely and utterly aware of a greater reality, of which she was a part. Simple statements she’d once heard as a distant, annoying barking dogs in the night, yapping at the world, had thundered through her mind. A huge monster had grabbed her by the hair, spun her around, and roared in her face with enough power to rip her skin off…Only the huge monster had turned to be God.”

“She was most definitely a follower of Jesus, because in the world that her eyes had been opened to last night, there was no difference between Jesus and God. Together they’d ruthlessly and yet so lovingly ruined her to this old world, with its cars and boyfriends and designer jeans.”

“What few Christians realize is that you can’t follow Jesus without actually following his teachings.”

“When did speaking your beliefs become synonymous with forcing them upon others? I’m condemning no one. I’m only saying that I will follow Jesus.”

“Tolerance of evil is evil.”

“Love. It was a simple, narrow way. But it was Jesus’ way. And He is the simple and narrow way.”

Lastly, some good ole Biblical words that I’ve found enlightening lately.

“I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message was not with wisdom or persuasive words, but with power.”

“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.”

Take them for what you will. And tell me what you think.

So I passed my 20k listing in LastFM, which I think is broken… I thought I should put up my top listings. Could be fun. I posted some pictures.
Top Bands

Overall

Last 12 Months

Last 6 Months

Last 7 Days

Feel special Sam, you’re in my top listened to bands.

What I’ve been listening to lately? Not much. I know I’ve listened to more than this in the last 7 days…and I’ve definitely listened to those bands a LOT more than what it says. Like I said, I think it’s broken…I’m actually thinking about starting over a new account. Some of my most played songs are rigged and don’t make sense. Or can I just clear this? Something isn’t letting my iPod scrobbles go through, even thought it says they are. Anyway…You can kind of see my music tastes change as we get smaller and smaller time windows.

Inciting Incident updates? Paperwork for Rock Harbor is in the mail and then I can actually start volunteering. Spending my time is going really well actually. I have TIME TO DO STUFF?! Yea, I’ve been hanging out more with friends AND getting my homework done. Imagine that. Sleep is probably going to be the last one I get around to. I just keep staying up late. But I have initiated a mandatory 2 am bedtime. No matter what. Oh and I really didn’t feel that people thought this, but this way that I’m changing my life wouldn’t be possible without God, duh. I thought that was a stress, you know with the whole Donald Miller and theology stuff. But who knows. You guys are weird sometimes.

If you haven’t read Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I highly suggest you do. That aside, I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned from Miller.

I’ve enjoyed Miller’s previous books to date, my favorite being Searching for God Knows What. I guess he really got noticed after his best seller, Blue Like Jazz, came out. Each book seems so different that I find it hard pin down just who Miller is. When I first read Searching he seemed like a recently renewed Christian getting excited about Theology all over again. He couldn’t contain himself, and that really edged me on to get excited about it as well! That might be why I loved the book so much. It woke me up from my God slump.

Then I read Blue and was thinking how Miller had started to think about Christianity from an outward perspective. ‘Nonreligious Thoughts on Christianity’ was a pretty good tag line for this collection of short essays. It seemed like a cool modern/Godless take on what the human condition is and why we do, in fact, need God. I say Godless, not because it is in opposition to God, but because he writes the book from a nonreligious standpoint. It allowed me to build upon my foundation for my faith in Christ. I think it also allows non Christians to connect with his points a lot better. I was later surprised when I found out that Blue was written first.

After To Own A Dragon came out, I got acquainted with how I learned what a man is. I can’t tell you how many “be a man of God talks” I’ve been through and think, ‘Wow, that was a waste of my time.’ Don’t have sex before marriage, don’t beat your wife, don’t be a fool, and always watch them sports! Hoo-rah! Wow, something tells me there is something more to this whole man of God thing than a bunch of dos and don’ts. And isn’t there a better way to learn these things? Enter Dragon. Rather than just put a bunch of rules down, Miller explored how he learned what a man shouldn’t be through his fatherless home and later, what a man should be through his psuedo-Dads in his older years. I’ll tell you, this book made me appreciate my Dad a whole lot more. It also taught me how to identify what I was learning from my Father(heavenly and earthly). No “man of God” talks needed.

So, A Million Miles came out. And it didn’t disappoint. Tackling another topic, Miller explores how to make one’s life better. He takes what he has learned from writing stories and applies it to his own life. What is a story? A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. I find myself watching movies and wonder why such awesome things don’t happen to me. Why don’t I get entrusted with a ring that will save the entire world? Why aren’t I the One that has the power to manipulate reality and save the human race? Well there are easy answers to those…But seriously. I fall in love with all these characters that undergo amazing journey’s, learn who they are, fall in love, and change their personality dramatically. Why can’t I get the same in my life? What am I missing?

Bingo, conflict. A story is not about a character who wants something and gets it. They go through hell to get what they want. Sometimes they lose other things they want in the process. That’s why the story is so good. Would Raider’s of the Lost Ark be as good if Indy just followed a map to the ark in a tomb somewhere and that was it? NO! He fought Nazis, braved snakes, got saved from poison by a monkey, killed giant sword man, and finally had to survive the ark’s wrath. How does this conflict start? Why the inciting incident of course! That point in the story where the character can’t turn back. After Frodo has seen just what will happen to his Shire if he doesn’t destroy the ring. After Neo gets woken up from the Matrix and realizes his world was a facade.

Miller started creating his own inciting incidents in his life. He signed up to ride his bike across the USA, and he did. He told a friend that he would join him to hike Machu Picchu, and he did. He started a non-profit for mentoring fatherless boys while he couldn’t afford it, and he got sponsors and is now on Obama’s task force. He drove out to Illinois to meet his father that deserted him as a child, and is establishing a relationship with him. This is something I’d like to have in my life. Instead of sitting around wishing cool things would happen, I want to go do them. I was thinking that maybe I need to create some inciting incidents of my own.

So, I am.

Inciting Incident #1: Rock Harbor
Ever since I came to UCI I’ve felt out of the loop with Church. I couldn’t make it back to DFCC every Sunday, nor could I still be involved with The Burn youth since I wasn’t there on Wednesdays or come to all the events. I was really involved in DFCC my later high school years, but I just got farther and farther away until I wasn’t really needed. Not that there was any blame. I mean I went off to college, so they needed to find other volunteers. Well, here I am making a new Church home at a church in Irvine called Rock Harbor. DFCC will not be forgotten, but it’s time. While I have been attending Crusade at UCI for a while, it’s not the greatest in spiritual growth. It’s awesome to meet other people around campus, but you just can’t compare to a Church Community. Missing the involvement of past church, I’ve decided to take the plunge! I’m applying to be a Jr High youth volunteer! I can’t count the ways that Mike, Amy and Nathan helped to shape my life into what I am today, and I hope I can do the same to some kids over here. I want to be heavily involved with a Church again, so I’m signing up to hang with the youth. Conflict can be read as college.

Inciting Incident #2: Girls
I’ve been single for a while, but I think now I’m ready to mingle. Having utterly blown a relationship chance last year, something was revealed to me. I have never really asked a girl out before, without knowing if they would say yes prior to asking. Is this lame? Girls, you tell me(please tell me!). I want to start a relationship with a girl again, so I’m gearing up to ask one out. Conflict can be read as college, fear, girl’s answer.

Inciting Incident #3: Spent Time
So, this quarter at UCI has been my hardest one yet. Usually my classes are split up into coding classes and and other classes which can include writing or just tests. This quarter, I am taking all computer oriented classes. Two are are studying/information, Algorithm Analysis and Artificial Intelligence, and the other two are more coding oriented, Language Pragmatics and Digital Graphics with Opengl. However, the AI class is quickly bringing coding into it’s homework assignments as well as its regular reading and quizzes. This is new for me. Usually my homework on the same schedule, either due during the week or on the weekends. With this split I have homework due during the week and the weekend. Every time I finish one set, another is assigned. This is new for me in the sense that I don’t get much of a break between the old and new homework. At least I don’t have to write papers, that’s a relief. Anyway, with all this homework and school I’ve decided to finally re-evaluate my spent time. I want more time to do what I want, namely inciting incidents #1 and #2. On top of my job, I’ve been primarily involved with 4 clubs on campus. Campus Crusade for Christ, Invisible Children, Video Game Development Club, and Dumbledore’s Anteaters. I’ve decided to basically axe the last two from my tentative schedule, atleast for this quarter. Not that I don’t have a blast quoting Harry Potter to death with some other fellow Potter nerds, but sometimes priorities need to take over. I want to start having more time to do what I want, so I’m going to cut some time out of my schedule as well as start focusing more on homework to finish earlier. Do what I want can be read as inciting incidents #1 & #2, learning guitar, and free time. Conflict can be read as wanting to attend, doing homework in a facebook free environment.

Inciting Incident #4: Sleep Early
And a final thing that I am really looking forward to making myself do, is sleep earlier. Ever since this summer I have been stuck on a 2 am bedtime. While it’s kind of fun to stay up late, it’s not so great when I have early classes or work. Thankfully, I’ve haven’t had early classes this quarter but I have a feeling this won’t last. So I better take care of my sleeping schedule before it really hurts. I’d like to go to sleep and wake up on different days, so maybe head to bed before midnight. I can wake up early and do homework in the morning to make up for the time that I would usually do stuff. I want to start sleeping early again and waking up at a reasonable time, so I am going to start going to bed early and wake up if I need to finish something that can wait. Conflict can be read as the internet, college, friends.

Wow. How is my story going to unfold? Will I fail to accomplish all of these? Maybe. But succeeding isn’t what makes the story.

Friday Night Lights was a great movie and had an awesome story, but they didn’t win.

If you are wondering what to take away from all of this; Go read some Donald Miller. He’s changed my life in multiple ways.

Now, I gotta see about this girl…

EDIT://7/15/10–adding this in to qualify for a contest to go to Miller’s Living aBetter Story seminar.  Heres to hoping I win!

Living a Better Story Seminar

2. Tell us a little about how you think the seminar might help you out. You don’t have to get detailed, just let us know specifically what you’re hoping to get from the seminar. This will help us cover all our bases as people come to Portland.

Well since writing this post I guess inciting incidents 1 & 2 worked out pretty well.  I’m a leader at the church I attend over here by UCI called Rock Harbor and I love it.  I love the kids.  I’m getting ready to leave for summer camp in August and help leading a lifegroup in October.  Sure the conflict is still college, whether I’m struggling to finish a project or finding time to study while I attend my leader activities, but you know what?  I find the time somewhere.  I routinely overcome the conflict because I want/love the leader position so much.  So, about that girl…I did ask her out.  I totally did.  And she knew it was coming, which petrified me.  You know what she said?  Well, she didn’t say yes.  But she also didn’t say no!  ”Ah HA!  There’s my loophole!” I thought, “Still didn’t get turned down.”  Honestly I thought that was it for a week or two, and it ended with me not going out with her.  Funny how asking someone out can prompt a non-romantic relationship, well for her anyway.  I was still very interested but had to keep telling myself she already said no, or didn’t say yes.  Well that lasted 3 months, and then we started dating.  And we’re still dating.  It’s great.  If I didn’t overcome that conflict I would have missed out on a great friendship and romance.

Inciting incidents 3 & 4 are the ones I’m finding hard to muster.  I guess you could find some sub-iniciting incidents in there that include guitar learning, working out, tennis, basketball, and free time in general.  Not saying that 1 & 2 are perfect, I could always use some drive to keep them changing for the better.  Sometimes I find myself getting complacent with a change half way, and then thinking “Oh cool I started it so it is done.”  I need help to finish these plans.  Miller’s book got me aroused enough to want some better plot lines in my life.  Miller’s blog got me through the planning part of my new script.  But I need help in executing it.  And that is where this seminar comes into play.  I can’t drive from California to Oregon for the conference during school time so this is really my one shot at getting there.  At the very least, if Don reads this could you drop me an email or a comment?  Encouragement is always helpful

Anyway, here is to hoping.