Re:Creation

all my friends back home have packed up and moved out of college for the summer. they’re driving around town getting jobs. they’re going shopping and going to shows, they’re taking road trips to see each other. they’re sitting down and looking back at the semester, contemplating the changes in their lives. they’re making lists of the top ten cds of spring 2002, as if spring were over.

sadly, it’s not. and my summer doesn’t start until, for them, it starts coming to a close.

that’s another reason i wanted to stay at stanford over the summer–that long month and a half from the middle of august through september, when everyone else is back at school and i’m at home, working, or sitting around being lonely.

maybe i shouldn’t be lonely (after all, i’ve got family, and not everyone has left town), or maybe i shouldn’t want to run from it.

unfortunately, it’s looking more and more like i won’t have the opportunity to make that moral, character-building decision for myself. unless i find a job soon, my housing opportunity will be gone, and i’ll be going home to florida for the summer.

now don’t get me wrong–i love orlando. i love it to death. i love my friends and family. and it would be a great sacrifice to stay here at stanford, and miss out on all that. i also love the florida weather, the warm, breezy nights devoid of that irritating chill so prevalent in northern california. i love the beaches, the sunrise over the atlantic, the tropical feel…

all the same, i want an adventure. i want to live on my own. i want to burn my own frozen pizza in my own stove. i want to be able to invite a girl over to my place: my small, crappy, overpriced apartment. i don’t want to be babied by the university, or charged exorbitant fees for their definition of fine cuisine.

i also wanted to apply for and get a job on my own–because of my own credentials, and not because my parents worked at the place. i wanted to make it, with god’s grace. i don’t want to be lonely or alone–wherever i am in the next few months, i plan on hanging out with people daily and building relationships to the best of my poor ability. i just wanted to be truly self-sufficient (in terms of housing and food) for the first time in 19.5 years.

but maybe i’m not ready anyway.

yesterday i was attacked by a bad mood. it snuck up behind me and sunk its claws in before i knew what was happening.

two main reasons: 1) i didn’t get the summer job i applied for. 2) another >1300 draw number. what kills me is my friend whose draw numbers for both the last years add up to less than 50. i hate this screwball university for more than its dining plans.

the funny thing was, neither of these setbacks really bothered me, nor did i even consider them setbacks. so i didn’t get the job–either i’d get another one or i’d go home for the summer. what does it matter? and i’m used to sucky draw numbers, so that should have been irrelevant. i guess my human nature shuffles around sometime, randomly bestowing upon me those characteristics which i thought myself better than: anger, disappointment, disillusionment, and the rest. ah well i’m better now.

what was good is that i did a lot of work last night, and got moderately caught up. now i’m only moderately behind!

right now i’m looking at 1,920,000 pixels. that’s a lot of pixels (i got a new monitor). in other news i broke my hiatus from the wall and cranked tonight. it felt good. now i just need to get running again. maybe tomorrow.

in other news, i’m going on crusade’s spring retreat this weekend, until sunday. it’s up in berkeley, so ick. but i hear the place has a hot tub. yeah i know what i’ll be doing. rock.

do you know what it’s all about? if you stop and think about it, it’s simple. LIFE, and LOVE, and WHY.

virtual disc on spin: big blue sky | bebo norman

the last wedding i’d been to, before this weekend, was my freshman year in high school (and before that when i was 11), and i didn’t even know the people getting married. so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when i almost cried 5 or 6 times during the ceremony. my beautiful aunt, young and radiant, was a living symbol of how christ sees the church: pure, dressed in white, and simply lovely. in that way the wedding was a deeply spiritual encouragement to me.

my family stayed with our friends, the morrises. we’ve known the morrises since when i was in elementary school in texas. we used to get together on friday nights and watch movies together, and go out to tia’s / benavides / rosa’s after church on sundays. they have two girls, emily and ellen. emily is my age/grade, and ellen is rachel’s.

i lived in texas for 10 years. i didn’t realize it so much when i lived there, but 10 years is a long time. i’ve never lived anywhere even a quarter as long. so as the two families were sitting around on saturday night, enjoying each other’s company and talking far into the night, it hit me what a truly marvelous thing it is to have friends that know you, that you grew up with, and that remain friends irregardless of how often you talk and how often you see them.

the short of it is, it felt like i never left. and it was a beautiful time. emily’s getting married in a month, and ellen is now off to college, but with all the millions of destructive changes that could have occurred, they, and my siblings and i, came away feeling as if our friendship had grown, not faded. i believe this is indicative of a very special bond, hard to come by in these days of isolation, which i have somehow been given in so many friendships. i can only praise god for it.

i visited a few of my favorite places, like cd warehouse, where i bought new albums by stairwell, radiohead, the gloria record, and damien jurado. we also drove by the high school and our old houses. i withdrew into myself and dwelled for a while on the sweet times the lord blessed me with in texas. but while i felt that sharp stab of nostalgia, i wasn’t sad–i wouldn’t trade anything for the way things have worked out, with orlando and stanford.

i flew back on sunday, tired from not having slept all weekend, and from doing hours of put-off homework on the plane. yesterday i skipped class for the first time and went to fry’s and bought a computer. i need a new computer at least every two years, and it’s been approaching that time, so i thought i’d better get it. for those of you who care, it’s a sony vaio 1.6ghz 512mb 80gb 64geforce4. a sweet machine on all accounts. the downside is that it takes a while for stanford to set up my internet to work on the new computer, so i haven’t been able to send or receive e-mail [easily] since i went to texas, or get on IM (i know, it’s weird not to be on IM 24-7).

i also did something very bad–i bought myself a new computer game to play on my new computer: jedi knight ii. not only is it the coolest game i have ever played in my life, i’m sure it’s the best game of all time. i won’t waste time explaining why–let’s just say that if you’ve ever dreamed about being luke skywalker or the young obi-wan kenobi, replete with force powers and flips and aerial lightsaber attacks and any other sweet move in existence, this is the game for you.

in other news i’m still awaiting word on the job i applied for at academic computing.

and….i think that’s about it. i’m thinking of flying back to texas in early june for emily’s wedding, since my brother will be in town and maybe my parents, and i was reminded this weekend that she’s a really good friend, maybe the most like a sister of any of my friends.

[come soon], sweet summer. [come soon], sweet slumber.

disc on spin: i break chairs | damien jurado

paper finished, laundry in the washing machine, girl at late night getting me chicken tenders, leaving in 2.85 hours for dallas.

i’ll be gone until sunday night late — take care.

i’ve been more aware recently of my self-centredness. it’s in all my actions…my thoughts…

at least being aware of it i’m able to laugh at it to its face, and so suffer only irritation instead of falling into major error. not that i don’t fall into major error, and sometimes intentionally so, but i find that being cynical about myself a little more acceptable than being ignorantly self-centred. now for the next step..

i’m going to dallas on friday, for my aunt’s wedding. so i have a ton of work to do before then. that’s kind of annoying.

in other news, i HAVEN’T SKIPPED A CLASS THIS QUARTER. its amazing, it really is. someone buy me a CD.

also, i’m writing a paper on descartes which is due before the end of tomorrow. it’s hard to think of things no one has said about descartes. sucky. if you want to offer moral support, feel free.

let’s see anything else going on….i’ll be getting a new computer soon, wahoo….the new pringles flavor “sweet mesquite bbq” is nice…did a presentation on the mayan language today in spanish…i ate too many mike and ikes because there’s a box sitting on my desk…i need to go to bed…draw deadline is this weekend, and draw is crazy as always. praying for a sweet number. please oh please.

virtual disc on spin: jealous sound | the jealous sound