Sleep is for humans.

I don't think I've ever missed her presence, her touch, her ability to remind me that I'm ok, more than right now.

Yeah, it's 4:15 in the morning.

I can't sleep. Haven't been sleeping since 3:15 or so. Finally gave up and decided to get up and grade.

Worked hard yesterday.

My family are good people, but we can be pretty loud sometimes. But they're my family, and I love them anyway.

I should be tired! Why am I not sleeping? Why am I awake? Why can't I stop missing her, stop being so bloody aware, and drift off into the land of sleep that the rest of my family currently so blissfully inhabits?

Maybe I'm sick?

Ohwell. Back to grading.

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Little Sinner Boy

Apologies to Jewel for co-opting her masterpiece for my own distorted thoughts.

You say he's a sinner, does it make you want to crucify him?
You say he's a sinner, do you want to send him straight to hell?
You say he's a sinner, does he make you sick to your stomach?
You say he's a sinner, are you afraid you're just the same?
Sinner, Sinner, Do you hate him
Cause he's pieces of you?

Saturday, February 28, 2004

expecting and waiting

I have just one question?

Considering how unsuccessful I was yesterday (classes skipped, assignments not turned in, opportunities missed). . .

why was it such a good day?

(shrug)

Anyway. . . I've got to take a shower, and go to a meeting, so we can elect the students who will replace us for next years IEEE officer positions.

Ever get the feeling that you're just moving through life waiting for something to happen that you didn't expect?

And doesn't that mean you're expecting it?

Friday, February 27, 2004

It rained today.

ARUGH!

My diary just ate my post. If I wasn't helping my roommate give up swearing for lent. . .oh, the earful you would get!

My life is falling apart.

I'm so far behind I'm not even sure where I'm supposed to be.

Lets see, shall we?

Assignments for 312: Didn't turn in Tuesday's homework. Didn't attend today's lab.

Mechatronics: Didn't turn in the last homework (due last Friday) probably won't get the next one done, and it's due next Tuesday.

Computer Architecture: skipping class tonight, probably won't finish the homework that is due. There's a test next week. I don't care.

Lab Assistant position: I have a massive number of lab papers to grade, hopefully by Tuesday morning they will all be done, but when am I planning to do them? While I'm home on Sunday? HA!

FE exam: The deadline to register is March 1st, and I haven't even started preparing yet, and the fee to enter? $125 that I don't have. I have to go home and beg money from my parents. How sickening is that?

Lord's Players: still have turn the test CD into a finalized CD and make a dozen copies.

Independent study class? I'm supposed to have a working camera driver this week. I haven't even started on the work. I don't even have a testbed set up. I have nothing!

Senior design: I made commitments about finishing senior design aspects for the team that will be taking it up next year, I haven't even touched it yet.

Personal life? Missing some clothes I need. Broke, and need to buy shoes (@#$*!) and miss my girlfriend terribly.

Graduate applications? Still haven't sent out the letters requesting a shift from this fall to spring or fall 2005 for the applications for admissions. Still haven't talked to professors about letters of recommendation.

Falling apart? My life doesn't have two pieces left side by side that can fall apart.

And yet I'm supposed to be the strong one for everybody else.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

O' Great God

'O Great God
There have been moments when I could not face Goliath on my own.
How could I forget we've marched around our share of Jerichos?
But I will not be setting out a Fleece for you tonight,
Just wanna know that everything will be alright.

-From Nichole Nordeman.

My constant struggle with God is a mixture of personal desire for contentment (I want God to call me to do things that I want to do) and a spiritual desire to do as he wishes even if I know it stands against my desires.

I don't think I'm capable of being content unless I'm doing as God wills in my life, and at the same time, I don't know that I'm content doing just anything God might call me to.

What if he calls me to martydom? The Medical profession? Celibacy? Homelessness? Addiction?

There are all sorts of vocations I can't imagine myself happy or content serving in, yet I recognize that I have natural aptitudes that might allow me to succeed in those areas. What if one of those areas is what God calls me to? Will I be content to follow? Or will my resistance (even if I eventually do as he asks) taint my work for him and make it meaningless and empty?

There's a quote from a chap named Frederick Buechner on this topic.

"By and large, a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work...

a. that you need most to do and
b. that the world most needs to have done.

If you get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are, you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time, you are bored and depressed by it, the chances are, you have not only bypassed (a), but you probably aren't helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper and Row, 1973

I hope and pray that he is right.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Lessons in Caring

It's late.

late late.

I've got a critique tomorrow.

But tonight I got to tell someone that she mattered to me, and that she had impressed me, and got to say things that I've needed to say, and that needed to be said, because they are the truth, and the truth needs to be shared.

Fisher's was good tonight. Justin made a bridge call and we found two people under it. Randy and Robert. They're both residents, appearantly, and seemed to be doing as well as can be expected. We left them food and water and prayed with them. They seemed surprised that we cared. Robert asked us, straight out, "Why is it that people like you care about people like us?"

I told him that I felt it was God's calling on our lives. It is what we're meant to do. To care, to live, to grow.

What kind of world is it where it is abnormal to care for the wellbeing of your fellow man?

I want to change that. I want the world to be different. That's not my job or my right to change though. But I can change me. I can make me be different, and that changes the world as much as anything.

Tonight under that bridge I was reminded how important it is that we care for each other, and that we express it. Tonight on the phone I was reminded how important it is that we care for each other, and that we express it.

Very different situations. Very different environments. Very different people.

Same lesson.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Will you still call me superman?

Yesterday was a good day.

I wound up playing Dutch Blitz for a long time. Remembered some good memories from home, and being young, and playing games with my family.

I hope that if I ever have children, we play games together more often than we watch whatever will pass for television in the future. There's something pure about just focusing on a game that only involves a small circle of friends.

We played in the cafeteria, and probably frightened most of the people around us. Dutch Blitz can get a little loud. . .and, uh, mean. :)

Aside from that? I wore my new clothes (Club Room jeans fit well? Who knew?), and I like them.

Now to get to work, preparing for another three day onslaught from hell.

Remind me again why I wanted four day weekends?

Monday, February 23, 2004

Talk to Me?

"Darling, turn your notes on."

Ok.

[I kept the link to the original notes page, so that people can sortof follow how AiW matured. To contact me these days, you're probably better off with the e-mail link at the bottom - AiW]

Sunday, February 22, 2004

More!

2004-02-22 - 1:14 p.m.

Wow.

So I was just over at Tim's Xanga journal. It's good stuff. You all (all three of you?) might enjoy it there.

In any case, the reason that drove me to post is to echo something he mentioned. It's this short film that I just watched, called "More". It is truly incredible.

You can find it at http://www.happyproduct.com

Or if you like to make sure you have things later, when you want them again, and don't trust anything on the internet to stay where it is for very long, you can get the .mov downloaded directly by rightclicking and clicking "save as" on this link right here.

Enjoy.

Alchohol is cheap? Who knew?



2004-02-22 - 10:17 a.m.

So a bunch of us got together recently and relaxed a little. Some of us drinking, some abstaining, everybody just letting the stress and annoyance and energy of another week of school slide away into the relaxed atmosphere of friends being friends.

Games played, dinner served, drinks poured, laughter made, jokes cracked.

The moment needs no addition, yet in the middle of it all I still find myself missing her. Good friends are enough for that evening, yet they would be so much sweeter if she were near.

But back to my story.

We're all sitting around, some of us have been enjoying the mellow effects of a few cocktails and at least one member of the crew isn't prepared to be standing or skipping anytime soon. We're playing Catchphrase. Of all games, this is a great one for this kind of evening, if you want to keep a handful of really bad inside-jokes that become entirely "you had to be there!" based later.

Anyway, we're playing catchphrase, and the one entirely sober member is sitting there. The person suggesting clues has had a couple drinks, but nothing serious.

The person suggesting says hurredly "Ok, this is the thing that King Arthur lived in!"

And the sober guy shouts "LANCELOT!" with utmost confidence.

Ah, it is moments like these that cannot be scripted. :)

Zuma is not your friend.

New Zuma High Score? 109,250.

Final level? Level 4-3.

Oh yeah, I've got the mad logic and coordination skills.

Now if only I had some sort of, y'know, social skills, I wouldn't be posting to my online diary about my high score in a computer game at 10:30 on a Friday night.

How do you spell loser?

I'll give you a hint, it begins with a "P".



Friday, February 20, 2004

Pictures fade to Black

Sometimes I think that developing film is metaphorical.

For what? Well, anything, really.

I mean, how many analogies can you draw about the process and painstaking attention to detail and all the energy that goes into just making a picture appear out of the ether when you drop photo paper into a tray of developer?

The first that comes to mind is friendships and mentoring. Often it's just like developing to a print when you've put time and effort into someone in an effort to make them realize they are worth it, or are not stupid, or are decent at relationships, and you feel like you're getting nowhere. Sure, you're following all the steps and saying all the things they need to hear, but it's like nothing you do comes across. Then one day you step back and realize that they have matured right in front of you, you just couldn't tell until you took a moment to look at the big picture again.

It's just like stepping out of the darkroom with a print you thought was 'decent' but didn't show much detail. That moment when you realize that under natural sunlight all the details come bursting out and you've got an almost perfect print on your hands is wonderful.

If you're lonely you can talk to me.

Ech.

Dozing is good. Being dragged from your doze by a person you love on the phone is arguably better.

What does it mean to belong? I've been debating that one lately. Is there a perfect spot into which each of us fits within communities, societies, and circles of friends? Or do we have to carve out our own space via hard work and assertiveness? Must we make others appreciate us for who we are, or should we just keep looking until we find the group where we fit?

And if we're supposed to just keep looking. . .will we ever be satisfied, or will we always feel just a little bit 'too different' to fit in with the crowd?

If we are supposed to carve out the space for ourselves. . .won't inhabiting it always feel just a little forced? Like perhaps we've put in too much effort and things aren't going to work out in a way that allows us to really be comfortable or feel needed?

What if I feel as if I belong, but those around me don't feel the same way about me? Or don't feel the same way about themselves?

And why are we all so freaking insecure?

Lighting is everything.

So I went and made some photographs this morning.

I love Macon. Look confident, hold the camera properly and you can walk in anywhere.

By the way kids: step carefully in adandoned, burned out, WW2 era factories. . . the floors can be soft.

Also, pidgeons can cause quite a fright if startled. . .

But the pictures? Oh, some of the shots I got out of that place are going to be priceless.

And I already developed both rolls, and they came out decent, so I'm looking forward to doing proof sheets this afternoon and 5x7s tomorrow.

I love photography.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Sweet Jane

I just had the most enlightening conversation.

How blessed is the one who is trusted. Yet, how much it can sting to realize that you hide your own thoughts and feelings so well that the person sitting across from you (whom you once desired, and once considered a distinct possibility for your future) now expresses all about their own concerns and doubts and fears and loves for others without once thinking you might have once been jealous. How strange to feel that you have matured beyond that point, and that the door has closed, and you have understood one another and become happy in your respective seperate lives.

How different to look back with perfect clarity and no longer wonder if she ever considered, but instead know that if she did, she has put that concern behind her, and it no longer comes to mind. How surreal to look back on a crush you no longer have and understand it fully because you are in a relationship that makes you happy and secure and makes the idle crush of the lonely times little more than a string of half-hollow memories.

How is it that humanity can mature in such short time? How do we learn so many lessons and move on to lives improved by wisedom and experience so quickly?

The sweet taste of the past, the stinging wonder of the present, and the uncertain whisper of the future all combine at times like these to become a maelstrom of amazing, tantalizing beauty that reminds me why I love the life I live.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Commissioning a Symphony in C

Grade Grade Grade.

(sigh).

I miss my girl.

In other news, sugar is the devil, and you should never skip dinner. Bleah.

And to talk about something important (!): after learning what I've learned about humanity, I am starting to think that the only way anybody makes it out of high school with their virginity is that high school students must be really bad lovers.

One of my roommates argues that high schoolers aren't lovers at all. And that the word for the desire for sex without love is f*ck, and therefore, High school students aren't lovers, they are f*ckers.

I think he's probably right.
2004-02-18 - 9:01 a.m.

*shrug* Hard for me to say, since I've never been to high school. :)

Template sucks. . . less

Well, I'm not happy. . .but it'll do, for now.

And now, off to grade. And grade. And grade.

[sigh]
2004-02-17 - 2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Feeling the sting, and wondering. . .from where this came?

Back from class.

97% on the Engineering Economy exam.

What's that? Showing up on time to class is inconsequential? Yeah, pretty much.

Academia sucks.

template suxxors!

2004-02-17 - 12:05 p.m.

The Template Sucks.

Class in five?

Must . . . Fix . . . template. . .

Screwit. Already skipped lunch, can't skip class.

Will fix later?

Maybe.

Pretty Donna

I wanted a diary.

This is it.

Welcome to my soapbox.