A Defiant Administration

Six Years Later... Where Did Our Resolve Go?

2007-09-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

Somber memories enter our hearts and minds when this fateful day comes every fall. On this day, six years ago we saw the very embodiment of evil before our very eyes. I can distinctly remember the knot in my stomach after witnessing the symbols of democracy and capitalism shattered on a beautiful Tuesday morning. On this fateful day we saw the very embodiment of human nature in its worst form.

Terrorism struck our shores, crippling the ivory tower dream many of us had of what America symbolized. We saw wars, battles, genocide, terrorist attacks as events that occur in lands afar off. We saw them as symbols of the uncivilized world, not to be mistaken with the industrialized world we thought we knew. In that sad day, our innocence was taken away, shaping an entire generation the way the attacks on Pearl Harbor changed those who witnessed it.

On the same day that we saw the horrendous results human nature can bring, we also saw the incredible potential we can have when we apply ourselves in a selfless manner. We saw and read the stories of those who went back in to the burning buildings in an attempt to rescue others. We witnessed how the simple game of baseball could bring a sense of normalcy to the country by watching a New York team battle incredible odds again and again. We witnessed a defiant leader throw the first pitch in a World Series game as a sign to those who hated us that the U.S. was still here, still relevant, and very much alive. We rallied around the flag that has flown as a symbol of freedom and hope and stated that we would go about this new battle with the same resolve that we entered the last great battle of history...

In spite of it all, here we are six years to the day of the terror attacks on our beloved country. Ground Zero still bears the scars of that day, with no progress being made to honor those who died and bickering arising as to what should be done with the land. We find ourselves mired in a war we so eagerly supported out of our thirst for revenge and our willingness to fight the enemy wherever and whenever, taking the fight to them as opposed to having our cities be the battlegrounds they were on September 11, 2001.

What happened to the resolve we so proudly expressed in the aftermath of 9/11? We have lost sight of the purpose of this fight and it is disconcerting to see. We fight amongst ourselves, our enemy continues to threaten us and now they see us divided. A house divided against itself will not stand. Six years ago we stood strong, proud to be Americans, knowing that this new chapter in history will have the American imprint on it. It is my fear that we have lost the grip we had in writing this new era.

Where did we lose sight of this? And where do we go from here? Questions that no one has the answer for...

Despair Is Not A Method

2007-02-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

The country has expressed its reaction to this administration’s perception of the State of the Union. It is pleasant to see that there is still a glimmer of hope among those willing to be courageous. In spite of the challenges that lay before us, it is my hope that we are able to come together and find viable solutions to the obstacles we face. I believe we have the will to face those difficult tasks, but we must also possess the wisdom to do such. Let us see how we can implement those changes.

Many of you have questions on how to achieve success on this all-important matter. It is with confidence that this administration declares that there are answers in agreement with the Word of God, the standard to which we adhere. It is our determination and purpose to live the right and God-centered way of life, devoid of terror and its destructive ways. One way to do so is through effective and heartfelt communication.

It is understood that we operate on different plains, different levels. It has been said that men and women are wired in unique and complex ways. This is true, but it does not excuse the erratic and hurtful behavior that some have engaged in. It is this type of action that leads to confrontation, complaints, terror and sadness. Our policy is that we do not negotiate with those who practice such tactics. It is not just about coming together, it is about designing a roadmap to success with benchmarks, realistic expectations, realistic goals that we can all achieve and implement.

It has been mentioned that men desire and seek to have respect from the opposite sex. The same could be said for women. How is it that we as men or women can gain that respect and how can a member of the opposite gender show us respect? It is important to note that to earn it one must first show it. Much as with friendship, we are to follow a Biblical principle in regards to respect. “A man who has friends must himself be friendly…” (Proverbs 18:24). This not only refers to how our conduct should be in order to gain friends but it can also be implemented to the topic of respect. People, to be able to have that respect we have to make sure our conduct is such that is deserving of respect. Our thoughts, our actions, our words should reflect Godly character. We cannot demand support when we ourselves engage in behavior conducive to terror.

Critical to our success in this battle of ideologies is our mindset. This fight is largely dependent on our attitudes. There are some who have a defeatist attitude and provide no solution of their own or who operate on flawed processes that predict failure and are thereby self-fulfilling. Criticism, controversy, baseless claims, and a hope falsely founded are not paths leading to cooperation. Negativity and finger pointing, as well as our own denial, will not make the situation any better. We need to focus on the positives all of us can bring to our respective situations. We acknowledge that we do not have all the answers, yet there is the underlying truth that happiness can be had when we come together in agreement for the greater good.

In accordance with agreement, we are to set reachable benchmarks as to how we engage the situation. We need to have an understanding that life is a struggle and there will be times of confusion and potential despair. How we react to this generational battle will define our success. We aim for the Godly response, one in which strength of faith, resolve and conviction are our strongest allies. This goes for all of us who desire results. Change doesn’t come by remaining idle; we make it happen through active engagement. We make it happen by making the efforts our Creator has outlined, the efforts that our Father in heaven will bless.

It has been said that hope is not a strategy. Indeed, by itself it is not a method. However, the strategy must include hope. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's statement to Gen. John Abizaid regarding the violence in Iraq: "Hope is not a strategy." Abizaid responded, "I would also say that despair is not a method. As we nod to the general who has fought battles and knows how wars are won… we ourselves say: Despair is not a method; rather we are to choose hope knowing that when we have found something special, with someone special, it should be held on to. We are to use everything in our power to protect it, arming ourselves with the word of God, faith, logic and reasoning, each based upon the former.

We Got To Show Each Other Some Love

2007-01-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

This rite of custom brings us together at a defining hour — when decisions are hard and courage is tested. We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies — and the wisdom to face them together.

This defines what we are facing right now. We struggle through life's trials and what we ourselves do to make it more difficult than it should be. In speaking to others across the nation and gathering their collective thoughts on many a subject matters, something BIG has to change. It is deeply attached to our faith in God accomplishing those tasks, what we ourselves do to complete the job ahead of us, and whether the two are in harmony and fit into the overall picture.

The subject of dating within God's Church has apparently gathered a strong wind and some have expressed hopelessness, others have spread dissent and tyranny, while a few keep the hope of love and romance alive. As is the case with democracy, love is a fragile concept. It has been misunderstood by some, applied erroneously by many and established by a courageous few. Much as with the headlines with the War on Terror, we put our focus on the failures and struggles that we face while ignoring the good that is being accomplished.

Case in point, we pay too much attention to the heartache we've suffered and how we've been wronged. I am one who has done so and I bear the responsibilities and consequences of doing so. It leads to bitterness, anger, and loss of hope, lack of faith and opens the door to pessimism, a negative attitude. Doing so makes the battle more uphill than it already is, and we are left with a lack of fortitude to see the fight through. The vision becomes blurred and we let ourselves become hopeless.

There are some who have a misconstrued idea as to what we refer to as the War on Terror. Some think that the rhetoric refers to a universal belief in which the opposite sex is to blame entirely for the failures we have encountered in dating, how we approach it and the overall picture of relationships in the Church. This administration has not endorsed a policy of blame-all without proposing solutions. That is the essence of what I am trying to get at, being able to see where there can be agreement or at least explain how we can all improve our chances at success. It cannot be achieved by being encamped in two oppositional trenches aiming the weaponry at each other. Bipartisanship is what is desperately needed to achieve success. We should not much care about which side of the aisle we sit on – as long as we are willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done. Outside of the Church’s Work, there is no greater work that needs to be accomplished in our lifetimes. This HAS to change if we are to partake of the same happiness we have seen a courageous few apply.

As Churchgoers, we try to keep our focus on the BIG picture. Sometimes it is difficult to do so when we get caught up in the distractions of everyday life. We try our hardest to prepare for what is just ahead, regardless of how far off that might be. We also work and educate ourselves so we could be able to provide and live a somewhat comfortable physical life. It is difficult to balance these two views, caring about a world that we KNOW is perishing. Standards and expectations remain high even though they might not be realistic.

Partly, the War on Terror rhetoric refers to the unrealistic expectations of the opposite gender. We are venturing in what I refer to as a crusade, bringing back the romance, courting, and chivalry to a society that has no idea what those terms are or the importance they have in how we conduct our lives. It seems that there is an abundance of talking a good game, saying the things that the other gender likes to hear but a lack of will to implement what should be so simple. There is talk of just wanting to settle with a converted mate, to endure through life’s struggles together, in essence, to find enduring happiness. How are we to accomplish this mission when we face enormous obstacles?

Why are we so open-ended about relationships and commitment? Are we truly “open-ended about our options”, “waiting for the right guy/girl to come into our lives” or do we simply push away the best thing that God could send our way? We CANNOT have it both ways. To pray to God to provide and proceed to push him/her out when we can potentially achieve that happiness is utterly indefensible. There are going to be struggles and I suggest we break off the idea we all have concocted in our minds about the perfect scenario. We ourselves are not perfect; there is no Utopia in sight, the perfect spouse is not coming through the door anytime soon. It is time to stop engaging in a thought process that is a total disconnect from reality. The fact is that we need not to lower our standards but to make our expectations compatible with reality.

Reality is that there is an impending collapse of Western society, as we know it. Life is a lot more difficult for us than it was for our parents. I suggest speaking with those who gave you life and gain insight as to what they went through in their marriages. Too often we see the “finished” product of a happy marriage but we do not see the blood, sweat and tears that went into such a magnificent creation. We see the happiness and joy of some but do not have any concept of what it takes to have a joyous relationship eventually leading to marriage.

It is safe to say we seek to serve God, to love and support a spouse, to live happily… to have God and each other. Whatever your beliefs are, they are not in favor of failure. Let us take this moment to look within ourselves for a new strategy, a strategy of hope.

Rebirth of an Administration

2007-01-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

Well the KC Weekend came and went and it was incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. Once again it felt like a mini-Feast condensed in one weekend. It is becoming THE event to attend if you didn't get to spend the Feast with your friends. A lot of hard work went into it and I am grateful for those who made it happen.

The weekend was wonderful in all areas. I enjoyed the Bible Study and seeing people from all over the country coming for this one weekend. A group of us went to Applebee's on Friday night and had a grand ole time catching up with friends, singing along, dancing and referring to the War on Terror. Richard Pomicter and I served as chaffeurs for the weekend although he did more of the driving in my car than I did. The Sabbath started off wonderfully as we picked up two of this administration's sympathizers for brunch at IHOP. Needless to say, it was great to spend time with God's people and have meaningful conversation with them. We arrived at services and it was as hard to find seats as it was in Copper Mountain. I wasn't expecting to see almost 500 people attend a regional weekend. The sermon was given by Dr. Winnail and he brought up some great points on what guys and girls expect out of each other as well as what healthy families practice. It will go a long way if we start applying those lessons on a daily basis.

After services there was a massive potluck but surprisingly I was not hungry and did not eat. I think it surprised a lot of people that I was saying no to food. I enjoyed the dancing though, especially to the salsa songs I recommended. It's always a good time to bust out my Latin moves which I don't do nearly enough. It's the strongest hand this administration has so it was enjoyable to get out there and dance :)

We did the afterparty thing at the Hayden's with the other 50 people who were there. High times that night for the regime since there were great conversations with wonderful people involved. I think I went to bed at around 4am and woke up the next day pumped about the sports. I played with Jason, Juan and Chris and we played fairly well together. We played Josh's team twice and those were fun games. I think the most intense game was the one we played against the "LCG" team with the shiny jerseys. Great game all around and some good basketball was played. Unfortunately we lost one game but hopefully better planning will go in for next year since the brackets kinda fell apart after awhile.

New Years was spent at many different locations: at the Keesee's to watch Hitch (one of my favorite movies), at the bowling alley, a brief stop at Fox & Hound (I got a free beer out of it), and then Richard Olson's place. Great times all around and it was sad to see everybody go.

It seems that in spite of the Democratic takeover of Congress there is still a will to fight the War that is before us. These are dark times for the Jedi but as long as we're standing we can overcome the obstacles set before us. The sympathizers seem to be numbering up but we need greater and more emphatic support. We're still relevant, alive and kickin'.

In Light Of What Has Happened

2006-12-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

12/9/06
Sabbath Services (KC)

1st Part (by: Mr. Millich) “Damage Control”

In response to Mr. Bryce’s and other allegations found rampant on the web. (Ed’s note: Issues raised are numbered and the Church’s response is in bullet points. I hope this is of some help to you all.)

To allegations that the Church does not encourage free thought or questions:
The Church is NOT against questions.
-it is more than willing to answer questions.
-the problem is not with the questions, it is with rebellion and heresy. When people are rebelling against God or promoting heresy then the Church has to take action.
-if the Church is wrong about something, it will change.

Issues:

We live in a “greater Church of God” era
There is only one Church of God.

Rev. 3:1-6 God separated the eras from each one; the people from the Sardis era were spiritually dead but there were a few who were alive when Mr. Armstrong began to lay the foundations for the Radio Church of God, later the Worldwide Church of God. Even though God was working with Philadelphia there were still people from the Sardis era alive.

Rev. 3:7-13 The Philadelphia era is still functioning. There were going to be people with little followings and that’s why God exhorts us to hold fast to the Truth.

Rev. 3:14-22 Christ loves the people in Laodicea. God chastens every son whom He loves.

We are the remnant of the Philadelphia era living in a Laodicean age.

Rev. 2:18,25; 3:3 There are remnants of other eras that will be around when Christ returns.

Rev. 12:13-17 Satan wishes to destroy the Church and its fragments.

The separation of the Philadelphian and Laodicean eras occurred with the apostacy.

Makeup is a sin
Is. 3:16 Misprint on the translation.

Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Meredith have advocated a sound, middle of the road approach
Mr. Armstrong never went back and forth on the Sabbath, the Holy Days, repentance, the gospel of the Kingdom. He (and we thereafter) has stood fast on the important things and has not compromised on those issues.
The only difficulties have been in judgments.

LCG is preaching a mixed-up message of the gospel
· The gospel is preached the same way it always has been.
· We’re not confused or “mixed-up” about the gospel’s message.
· The Church has NEVER advocated Sabbath breaking. (This was in response to some things Mr. Millich read online where an issue with the Sabbath was brought up in Alabama. Mr. Millich wanted to put that to rest because he used to be the Pastor in the area and knew about the situation more than those who commented on it.) He also added, “No one gets away with anything, we all stand before God!”

LCG teaches a three-fold commission
· The Ezekiel warning message is part of our commission. Preaching the gospel to all nations as a witness, preparing the flock and blowing the Ezekiel trumpet warning is all part of God’s Church commission.

LCG is categorizing sins (smoking, chewing tobacco, using drugs are not terrible sins and it is condoned)
· The Church does not categorize sins.
· The Church does try to help people who have addictions and tries to help them overcome.

Mat. 7:18-23 The Church, as Christ Himself said, believes that the weightier matters of the law define us. These you ought to not have undone!

LCG teaches that it is ok to meet in halls with holiday decorations
· We cannot always meet in the ideal places but the important thing is that we meet on the Sabbath to honor God.
· What are going to do? Are we to say, “let’s not meet this Sabbath because our hall has holiday decorations?” It is preposterous to compromise meeting on the Sabbath because of the hall’s decorations.

LCG teaches a different way of tithing than what Mr. Armstrong advocated
· Tithing off your net income has always been taught and practiced and will continue to be.
· Mr. Millich also gave the example of past cases that because of some Asian countries’ high rates of taxation, people were not able to give a third tithe. Mr. Armstrong understood that in some countries it was impossible to keep a third tithe when people were being taxed upwards of 75-80% of their income. Giving that third tithe would have not allowed those people to buy food and sustenance. Things like this happen sometimes and rulings must be made to ensure people’s well-being.

2nd Part (by: Mr. Millich) “Church Government”

Ed’s note: Mr. Millich was reading from a 1974 letter from Mr. Armstrong regarding the makeup issue. He wanted to use HWA’s own words so we could compare it with what Mr. Meredith has been saying all along. The letter was not so much about makeup as it was stating the importance of Church government. So the following points all come from Mr. Armstrong’s letter.

Satan has not given up his assault on God’s Work. We must guard against those attacks. He rebelled against God’s government in the beginning and he has tried to destroy God’s government in God’s Church. If he destroys God’s government in God’s Church then he can cripple the gospel message from getting out to the world. (Mr. Millich proceeded to add: “Which group is using the most of its resources in preaching the gospel? The Living Church of God has been doing God’s Work!”)

1 Cor. 1:10 We are exhorted to not allow divisions come between us and be joined together with the mind of Christ. To have that same mind and that same judgment.

God has not chosen perfect men to do His Work. Christ chose imperfect men who are willing to follow Him unconditionally.

The source of Church government is from God
-The head of the Church is Jesus Christ Himself. He leads the Church, has led it and will continue to lead it until His Second Coming.

Mat. 16:18 The Church of God is headed by Jesus Christ, the Rock of the Old Testament.

Eph. 1:15-23 Christ is the head of the Church, all things are put under His feet.

Heb.11:1,6 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

We understand that we are not a “spiritual democracy”

Numb. 12:1,5-9 Moses was not perfect, he made mistakes but he was faithful to God.

Numb. 16:1-3, 28-30 Korah’s rebellion against God’s established form of government through Moses and the repercussions: they were swallowed up by the earth.

Eph. 4 Roles and offices in God’s Church to ensure order, to establish sound doctrine and to feed God’s people. These are God ordained positions and He is the one who places people in those positions.

Quick update

2006-12-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hello to all! A lot has gone on since I last updated my blog post-Feast. Crazy things have been going on all over the place. I'll sum it up in the following:
1. I got a job in KC and I've been living temporarily with the Millich's. The job isn't going so well, but the experience should be a plus. The Millich's have been so supportive and helpful and a great influence in my life.

2. The War on Terror has gone terribly bad. To those who understand the analogy, you'll get a kick out of it. It is both literal and metaphorical. Democrats have gained power in Congress and we brace ourselves for a critical 2-year stretch. Voices from all over are advocating cuttin' 'n runnin' while a few actually still stand for something.

3. Once again the Church is up against the forces of Satan as he tries to destroy what God has put in place. It's amazing how so much has changed in so little time. I do have sermon notes forthcoming from this past Sabbath as Mr. Millich did a wonderful job of countering the false allegations that are spewing all over the Internet about God's Church.

4. Life has presented new twists and turns and I seem to be stuck at the fork on the road with no idea as to where to go. Friendships have changed dramatically or have even been lost for difficult reasons. Harsh judgments have been cast and now I must learn how to deal with it all. Regardless, I continue to press toward the ultimate goal of God's Kingdom.

5. As stated above, some friends have come to the forefront and become people I could not envision life without. Buddies such as Jeremy and Richard Pomicter, Tiffani, Erin, Annie have all been there for me during these hard times. Thanks to my buddies :)

Well, I'm out and I'll post some more in a little while! Hope you guys are all doing well!

That's Not How We Do In Iowa

2006-10-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

The much delayed post-Feast blog on what was quite possibly the Best. Feast. Ever.

This Feast, more than any other I've been a part of, was about the sermons and their spiritual impact than it was about all the people in Copper Mountain, Colorado. The amount of young people who were there and the fellowship that came resulted from it was a definite plus. All around it was a great year. Of course this Feast was memorable from the things that were talked about to the intense physical football that was played to the new friends that we made. I will highlight the quotes or events that made Copper Mountain '06 a great year.

"We're building 4 more towers!" - Line from the remix of "Welcome To Atlanta" as we rolled to the Feast and continued building more analogies to the War on Terror.

"B-B-Q" - Singlehandedly THE line from the past two Feasts. Referring to anything you do with someone from the opposite sex. It was great to see more people use the term and poke fun at each other.

"I just want some ice cream" - What Kristen Lewis called the guys' counterattack to "brain chemistry" (more below). It involves the talking, the phone calls, the walks that two people can share at any time. Pretty much refers to acts of kosherness between a guy and a girl )

"Brain Chemistry" - The two most dreaded words I have ever heard in my life:) It was coined by the resident Canadian, Kristen Lewis. When things went wrong I used it myself and blamed everything on brain chemistry. Plus, it was the perfect answer for one of the silly questions in the 4,000 questions book. Apparently there is a chemical reaction in the brains of two people but it is not enhanced by getting an A in chemistry while in school. It is just something that clicks somehow :)

"Your fundamental flaw is that you're Canadian" - Richard's brilliant line to Kristen one night at the Feast. And like other amazing quotes, it was re-used by many :)

"They are left-wing, liberal, communist, pinkos" - Mr. Meredith describing the United States' media and their portrayal of the news during his Opening Night message :)

"I want to be Jeremy and I want you to be my Kristin" - Philosophy made up by Richard in which we take Jeremy's success in the relationship area and apply it to our own lives and situation.

"We're breaking the rules" - A line that was used many a times during the Feast to poke fun at 2 people with a unique past :) It is not to be used indiscriminately though as it has repercussions.

"That's not how we do in Iowa" - My response to the scoring system that was employed while playing Taboo with the girls one afternoon. It seems to me that every time I've played that game the rules change depending on the people involved. Oh well, it was fun.

"20%???!!! Who in the world leaves a 20% tip? That is prepostorous!!!" - My response to Kristin Vorel's clue on trying to get the word "Tip" while playing Taboo. She said, "it is customary to give 20%" and it is now part of the lingo me and her employ when we speak to each other.

"There will NOT be a democracy in Iraq" - Mr. Meredith commenting on the state of the Middle East. It is also a quote we have used in our analogy in the War on Terror.

"The FLAW" - Ryan and his brilliant philosophy!

"In what world???" - Richard expressing frustration at a certain topic during guys' night.

Along with these quotes there were many events and moments that stood out. The Six Flags outing was quite a success and a big thank you and show of gratitude goes out to Kyle and the effort he put into it. I am sure he lost some sleep and some sanity in organizing the event but it went off without a hitch. It was a wonderful time and there was some definite bonding time with the 8 other people in the Armada :) Plus, we got to witness and partake of Jeremy's 4 illegal driving maneuvers on the day. Truly one of life's greatest joys!

Playing tackle football was also a challenging adventure. The altitude definitely presented a challenge in playing consistently but it was fun. The hits were brutal, the bruises can prove it, but the fun was priceless. Even some of the girls got into the action and did pretty well. I saw some great catches and some awesome tackling. I think Josh can attest to that :)

It was also encouraging to meet new people and actually spend time with them. I also got to know certain people better and had some enlightening conversations with them. It is always a plus to get to know someone beyond their face, name, and location. This was the poorest year for me financially but the most rewarding spiritually.

I think it should also be mentioned how we handled ourselves at the Feast. We got together many times and enjoyed a drink or two but it never got out of hand. I have to say I was proud of all of us young people and how courteous we were to each other. Way to go guys! I hope ya'll Feast was as great as it was for the people in Colorado.

Nos fuimos pai

2006-10-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

Nothing like staying up late the night before heading out for the Feast road trip to get the excitement going. I did pack most of my things on Sunday but I left the dress clothes for last so they would be less wrinkly when I get to Colorado. This is going to be some kind of Feast, and I mean that in a positive way :)
Today started with some weird events happening around me. Quite scarring and if you care to know I'd gladly share the story in person but not in the blogosphere. We had our 1st playoff game for intramural football so that was on my mind for most of the day. I felt quite pumped and determined that we were going to pull out all the stops to win. Lo and behold, we played a pretty complete game as a team. Good solid defense along with some opportunistic offense allowed us to play with confidence.
I don't know what happened but we were just flying to the ball. I think we all played the best game we've played since we started doing intramurals the past 4 years :) I did pretty well quarterbacking, running around, getting some good passes out to my guys and I had 2 interceptions on defense. The second interception was the sweetest one because it was at the opponents goal line and I caught the ball one handed before it touched the ground and ran it back for what seemed like half the field. Apparently one of my teammates completely annihilated some guy on a block so they brought the ball back but it sealed the game. We didn't throw interceptions, played within ourselves and came out with the win. Not too bad for a team that lost all three preseason games. Too bad Mike and I leave tomorrow for the Feast and we won't be able to play the next game on Monday. Hopefully the rest of the team will hold down the fort and who knows, we might play deeper into the playoffs.
Now that I've ranted about our sport accomplishments, I have to say that I probably overpacked like no other for this Feast. It seems like it will be nice on the weather front in Colorado but you also have to prepare just in case it turns nasty. Plus, I've got some nice clothes I want to show off so I packed those in too. Too many dress shirts, probably too many "nice" going out shirts and a disproportionate amount of ties. Add it up and there's not enough days for the amount of clothes but I'm prepared :)
I pray everyone has a safe and enjoyable trip to the respective Feast site they will be attending. For those of you going to Colorado, I'll see you there on Friday! You guys ready? I sure am!

Simplemente no fallamos

2006-10-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a fruitful Day of Atonement. I had a pretty awesome day and enjoyed the 91 degree weather God sent us that day :) Sadly though, I didn't do anything special to break the fast. I worked out a bit after sundown, drank 2 liters of water, went to get some milk so I could pig out on some cereal. I wasn't really hungry at all, I ate because I figured I should eat something. Overall it was a great day!
I did most of my packing for the Feast on Sunday and after talking to Mike D for hours while watching football I basically had an idea of what I wanted to pack. The thought of taking long sleeve shirts and jeans for the Feast is making me cringe. I have always been about going to the warm Feast sites until I get older. Well, that will change this year and I'm actually looking forward to it.
The weather report for Copper Mountain from Sunday-Tuesday indicates sunny with the highs around the 50's. So all your sport minded people get ready for some football and/or frisbee in Colorado. It should be fun times for all of us there. I might be inspired to whip out the cooking skills for a night or two but that is still to be determined.
This should be quite a fun Feast for myself because it will be the first time in 16 years that I will attend the fall festival without having any schoolwork to worry about. What a grand thing to happen to me :) Now if a certain door would open for me...

Productive

2006-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

I feel quasi-productive tonight. I spent about 2-3 hours applying at a bunch of entry-ish level jobs that I think I qualified for. It was quite a task, especially when filling out the questionaire for Gallup. I'm telling you they should give you the job if you're able to have the patience to fill out the entire thing. Just imagine answering the same five questions phrased about 15 different ways in three sections. Here's to hoping something happens somewhere :)
In other news, the Feast is coming up fast. Crazy how I didn't think much of it while I was in DC for the summer. I was just trying to get through the summer and the Feast seemed so far away that I barely bothered to think about it. As soon as I came back though I have felt that the only thing I had to look forward to was the Feast. Now our road trip is a week away and I need to get some stuff in order.
First order of business is taking some of the dress clothes to the dry cleaners so that they can look very pro. I still don't know what all I'm taking clothes-wise because of the cold weather and I wonder how often we're going to all be outside. Dilemma. The second step is actually doing laundry because the pile of dirty clothes has turned into quite a mountain. It's good to have about a 2 month supply of clothes without needing to do laundry. It's quite ridiculous though and I'll get on it...either tomorrow, Friday or Sunday :)
Well folks, not a whole lot of interesting stuff is going on. Unless you count getting whupped on flag football by a superior team counts as interesting. Boy do I want to forget that game. It was atrocious from the start and now we enter the single game elimination format. So basically we have to regroup and play a heck of a lot better next game. I'm hoping my jammed left pinky finger gets back to its normal size. Right now it's fatter than the rest of my other fingers. I'm off to bed now!

Feast of Trumpets

2006-09-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

It was simply an amazing Holy Day all around but it started in a very unique way. Jake left the apartment on Friday afternoon to Minnesota to see Lisa's baby and bask in the glory of being an uncle. I had passed out in the couch sometime during his packing and by the time I woke up Mike had come in to the apartment and was anxiously waiting to play Madden on my PS2. So we did that for a couple of hours with some thrilling finishes. He left at around 9ish and we planned for him to pick me up at noon on the Sabbath...
Funny thing is that we knew it was Trumpets as well but it did not register with either one of us that we had morning services as well. Luckily he had called a friend and was reminded of the occassion and he called me to tell me, "Martin, we have morning services tomorrow." I never had something like that happen to me. Usually I remember things like that so I set out to get to bed early. There were problems of course with going to bed early.
I tried going to bed but could not fall asleep for the life of me. Being so alert at that time I decided to bust out my Bible and do some studying and praying. Make myself productive and all, it was good. I felt that I was taking advantage of my time and growing as well. It's the way I've been feeling lately too. Growing and learning because it's what sustains me not because I feel like I should. I'm glad I realized it in spite of the past year and all. A couple of weeks ago I told Mr. Millich that the only thing that helps me keep my sanity is my faith. We're the ones who continually fail, God never does but we find a way to do so. In most cases, we find the most painful way possible.
Trumpets was simply amazing. We had Mr. Wells come up from Kansas City and he gave what I considered one of his top-5 sermons he's given in the 4 years I have been attending in Des Moines. We all left to eat at Ryan's Steakhouse and pigged out for about 2 hours and made our way back. I for one thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Apartian's sermon. He went through a lot of basics and fundamental things regarding the Kingdom of God and that's NEVER a bad thing to hear constantly. We need that message to be ingrained in our heart, our mind and our soul more than ever before.
You'd be surprised how simple things are when you take a step back and think the way God intended us to think. Life has its thrills, its highs and its lows but God is the one constant we have. There was something from Mr. Blackman's sermonette that caught my attention. He was relating to us a story he heard from a member back from the WCG days. The man had a dream about the Feast of Trumpets and saw the firstborn being taken up into the clouds to meet the Messiah. In the dream this man kept trying to jump to get up in the air and join the others. Apparently he was not ready for entrance into the Kingdom.
It got me thinking on how prepared I (we) am (are) for the time of Christ's coming. Are we doing ALL that we should in preparing for such a monumental event? It is a humbling thought to ponder and I think it should make us more grateful of what we have. We need to walk worthy of the calling with which we were called because we represent that Truth that He revealed in us. It was good meat in due season. I hope we're all preparing for the rest of the fall Holy Days and make it a very productive season for us.

Quote of the day

2006-09-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

"Fat people are subject to the ideal gas law. Volume varies directly T (Charles' Law)"

-Jacob Wilson

2006-09-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

9/11 We Will Never Forget

Do You Remember...

2006-09-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of reflection and mourning for many. It is a day of infamy, one full of tears, pain and sadness for what had happened to our country. We all remember where we were when we first heard of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. We all remember what we were doing at that time. We all remember the look on people's faces, whether they be teachers, workers, students or friends. It is a day that marked the beginning of a different stage in the annals of history. Even though it was not the beginning of Islamic extremism, it ushered in its destructive power in this country's soil. Terrorism had occurred from afar for many years as the West sat idly by and it now made its way to the United States and the course of history was forever changed.
I remember the day of September 11, 2001 as if it was yesterday. I remember the incredibly sunny sky on a beautiful Tuesday in my beloved island of Puerto Rico. It began as any other day in what was an exciting senior year. I remember the day starting with the normal load of advanced classes that were part of my schedule. My friends and I were looking forward to Physics class in 4th period because we were covering the topic of acceleration and one of my friends brought his Playstation 2 with Grand Turismo 2 to show the charts and such that were a part of the game. At the beginning of 4th Period the teacher sent me and two of the other guys in the class to get the TV from the Technology Department. We made our way there and as we walk in the instructor and his 3 students were all watching TV and had an atonic look on their faces.
I glanced at the tv and saw the smoke from the towers' collapse. I asked to see what had happened and the teacher told me that two planes had struck the twin towers. I asked if there were malfunctions or weather problems. He told me there weren't, that it was a sunny day in New York and I knew we were at war. That image shaped my thinking and I knew we were living at a critical time in history. We're always told these things and we hear about it but that's when I KNEW this was our defining moment. How we react and deal with the aftermath of 9/11 will define our generation. The similarities with the Pearl Harbor bombings of December 7, 1941 were stark. At the same time though it would be entirely different. In 1941 we knew who the enemy was and what country it was based from. In 2001 the enemy hides amongst the innocent, in wealthy and poor countries and wears no uniform. In my mind I knew it would emerge as the most difficult of all battles in this carnal world.
We can debate the merits of the decisions made since that day and the consequences we have had to face as a nation. Let us not desensitize ourselves from the reality that surrounds us. We all know someone who was affected from the 9/11 attacks, whether through the attacks directly or from the military actions taken afterwards. We know because of the grace of God what our role should be in the current conflict. If you doubt why we are involved in the current conflicts we find ourselves in, I urge you to watch the news reels from that day. There is a reason we are at war, let us not forget. Pray for peace and for God's will to be done. Only He can bring true peace to this world yet pray that our efforts succeed in some way. Let us pray that our leaders seek wisdom and make the decisions that fit into God's plan.
I know America isn't what it should be and many debate its merits, rhetoric and actions. Many are critical and they have their right to be but I choose not to join in their efforts. It is still the country I love and we all enjoy its freedoms. Its freedoms, which the founding fathers believed were God given, have allowed us to live the lives we have to this point. Let us live in a way that makes us productive citizens of heaven and productive citizens of this country. God bless America!

I would like to do the following

2006-09-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

I thank God for Audrey Hepburn. If not for her existence and impact way back in the day, Maria Sharapova would not have created her black dress for her night matches during the US Open. I would also like to express my gratitude to Sharapova, for having a rockin' attitude along with a wicked backhand. Mike concurs with the previous statements after enjoying a thrilling championship match. Quite an awesome night.

The Yankees Win....The Yaaaankees Win!

2006-09-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

Wow! It was 2 a.m. as I opened Jake's apartment door after what appeared to be a marathon day of traveling. I arrived to Kauffman Stadium at around 4:30 p.m. and proceeded to devour a footlong sub and 3 cookies I had ordered at Subway before finally arriving at the Stadium. The gates open an hour and a half before gametime, so I stood in line until the gates opened at 5:30 p.m. I wanted to try my luck in maybe getting an autograph so I stopped by one of the shops and spent a ridiculous $7 for a Yankees baseball. I then found the section I was going to be sitting at (117, row X, seat 5...dugout view). I walked near the dugout behind the line of people already there (I bet ya I would have been able to be there if I hadn't stopped at the shop for 5 minutes) and took a bunch of pictures of Yankee players warming up.
I then made my way over to the area where the relievers were warming up and stretching. I took a lot of pictures of Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in baseball history. I, along with the dozens of people around me, were hoping for an autographed ball but my efforts were fruitless. I did however achieve the goal of actually catching a ball. Corey Lidle threw a ball in my general direction and I outstretched two kids with my glove to catch it. Yep, I got an official and very used Major League Baseball ball. Not too bad for being at my 3rd MLB game.
The game was an entertaining one. Randy Johnson started for the Yankees and pitched no-hit ball for 6 innings until it was broken by a triple in the 7th inning. New York catcher Jorge Posada provided most of the offense with two 3-run homers and the Yankees won 8-3. I was happy about the win and now more than ever I want to see a game at Yankee Stadium. Hopefully that dream will come true before they move to the new stadium in 2009-10.
So I almost witnessed a no-hitter and there was an actual no-hitter thrown in the same day by a rookie in Florida. Simply amazing! There's something about watching a baseball game in person regardless of your age that makes you feel like a little kid again. It's the 2nd game I attended in the past couple of months. I watched the Washington Nationals during my stay in DC and I enjoyed that game as well.
Now I am too wired to go to sleep even though I was very tired on my drive up to Ames. Go figure, I wish I had this type of energy all the time :) Regardless I wish you all a good night!

And I'm off!!!

2006-09-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

I leave for Kansas City to watch my beloved New York Yankees take on the Royals. I bought a ticket in the area on top of the visitor's dugout (i.e. the Yankees side). I've got my glove, digital camera and my Yankees cap. I'm in prime foul ball territory so I hope to catch one tonight. Much more important though, I'm hoping the Yankees win tonight! I should be back late tonight. I'm pumped! My first Yankees game!

A Labor Day Extravaganza

2006-09-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

As I try to ease my way back to the blogosphere I'll talk about the latest road trip adventure. Richard Pomicter and Jeff had been talking for a while about a visit to Richard's hometown of Omaha. As plans progressed Mike D and I were invited to spend the long weekend in the solid red state of Nebraska. Jeff was to come down from Minneapolis to Ames on Friday after putting in a hard day of work at his job. Jeff's arrival was to be around 8:30-9pm and then the 3 of us would head out to Omaha that same night. Well, things went smoothly and Jeff arrived and we proceeded to load his car with our belongings. And here the adventure begins...
Jeff had mentioned that he needed gas and was running low when he got to Ames. As he tries to turn on his car...it won't start. He keeps trying and nothing happens. No problem though, we'll just take my car to the gas station and fill up a little container and come back and put some gas in Jeff's car. We do that, put some gas in Jeff's car and....it won't start. We keep trying and trying and we figure the fuel pump must have been damaged on his way down. So we take the stuff from Jeff's car and load it in my car and we head out to Omaha at around 10pm. About an hour behind schedule but it's all good.
The trip consists of listening to Incubus acoustic songs and some Johnny Cash along with good male bonding conversation. We get to Omaha in about 2 and a half hours (no traffic whatsoever) and easily find Richard's place. We arrive, make ourselves relatively comfortable and start catching up on our life details. It was fun seeing Richard again, it had been about six months or so since we last saw each other. We start making preliminary travel plans for the Feast so that we have an idea of what we're doing as we make our way out to Copper Mountain. We have some good ol' male bonding talks that last until 5am Sabbath morning. We finally decide to go to bed and get some rest.
The Sabbath was a very good day from the start. Richard showed off his cooking skills with tasty breakfast burritos for everybody and after getting ready we left for Church. The Omaha congregation moved locations for services and not only is it near Richard's house but it is also a state of the art, very nice and clean place. I was quite impressed with the location, much better than where services used to be held. It was good seeing the people there, it had been about a year since I last visited and some of the kids have grown so much since I last saw them. Plus, I got to hold gooey twins that are adorable and drool a lot :) Actually, only one of the babies is gooey and drooly (is that even a word?), the other is on the smaller side and skinnier. It was fun, the sermon was incredibly inspiring and it led to a massive dinner afterwards :)
Dinner was at an Italian buffet...quite simply the most ingenious idea any single person could come up with. Combining the elements of Italian food with the "all you can eat" American ideology and it made for a stuffing of nirvana proportions that would have made Krishna proud. After dinner we headed to Alex and Jenelle's place for a night of card games, Bible trivia, and chillin' out. I apparently passed out at around 2am in a very uncomfortable position in a comfy chair and was woken up at 3 so that we could head out. After finding Mike and driving through the thick fog with visibility being close to 0%, we made it to Richard's house safely. I think we all went straight to sleep afterwards and rest up for some potential tennis the next day.
Sunday was a day of chillin', playing guitar, trying to master Call Of Duty 2 on Richard's PC, and after much delay some tennis. It was quite fun playing tennis again. It's not my sport but I have improved a little bit since I last played two years ago. I got to play Mike and he completely killed me by winning 6-2. I was proud of the fact that I got two points. Then as the other guys played I passed out in the car for about an hour. Afterwards we headed back to Richard's crib, showered, ate dinner with his parents and headed out to the Old Market in Omaha. The place is beautiful, lots of scenery and it makes for great conversation.
Monday came and nothing eventful happened. We left Omaha in the afternoon and made it to Ames before sunset. Another safe drive and a weekend full of fun and great exchanges of ideas. I definitely needed the time with the guys. I can't wait for the Feast to come and embark on another life-changing road trip :)

A simple thought

2006-06-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

I wanted to comment on Annette's blog on this subject but I felt that it would be better to post it on my blog since I wanted to tackle so many issues. Since I wanted to say so much on the subject, leaving a really long comment on someone else's blog would not fit right. It has been in the works since June and I just put the finishing touch on it. Enjoy!

*Warning: This post is not meant to offend, or criticize, or present a counter argument to Annette's blog. It is merely to present more perspective on the same subject.

I think it is true that it seems that there is a sizeable gap between the young male and female constituents in the Church. From the outset you can see and talk about how the guys and girls in the Church are on different wavelengths so to speak. I think partly that is due to how both sexes mature at a different pace but the argument cannot be simplified like that. There has to be and there is more to it than just "maturity".

It has been my experience talking with both guys and girls in the Church that on many levels, the girls in the 18-25 years old range seem to have the right set of priorities. They are more serious about God, the Church, life, and all the things that sometimes guys do not begin to think about until taking a few bumps in the road or experimenting with life's pleasures. Of course this argument generalizes way too much but it is the prevailing opinion and/or fact.

I have said it myself to some of the girls whom I consider good friends. I think that because of their example it has helped out some of us guys to start taking God and all other things in life more seriously. When you see people your age grow and achieve wonderful things it inspires you to do the same. Of course this is too rosy of a picture and a lot of other things occur underneath the surface that need to be said.

I don't want to pit this post as a "guy vs. girl" perspective but it undoubtably seems that the guys get an unfair rap as to how far we are from truly committing to something as serious as a relationship and/or marriage. Things cannot be simplified to the point where "guys aren't preparing themselves, aren't ready to commit while girls are taking the right steps." There is some truth to that but I wouldn't say it is as far reaching as one would think. I'm all for people (both men and women) educating themselves and improving their overall knowledge but it does not necessarily mean you've got everything clicking in the right direction. It just means you're receiving an education.

Yes you do learn how to organize, prioritize, develop responsibility, and all that jazz but I think we're being a little bit too dreamy with what college is really like. Are we all really that responsible, goal oriented, and organized as we attend(ed) college? I think we like to think so but if we really analyze ourselves we would know for certain that we are definitely lacking in those respective areas, as males and females. It is more than just the material preparation though, relationships are hard work and require dedication, sacrifice, forgiveness, and a LOT of understanding.

It is fair to say that the guys and girls want to eventually settle down and have radiantly joyful marriages. It seems though that people are afraid of taking a chance on developing a relationship. It is often said that "marriage is a leap of faith" but I would like to add that love in and of itself is a leap of faith. It seems that there is a fear to enter in a relationship because we are afraid of getting hurt. You never know how it might end up but you can never find out unless you try. I was having this conversation with a good friend of mine before I left for DC this summer and she seemed to agree. We want the satisfaction and happiness of a wonderful relationship without giving people a chance.

It goes along with Josh Kerr's post regarding the myth that there are not good guys around. If the guy does not fit the girl's frame of view (i.e. is not flashy, etc.) then he goes unnoticed. We all need to grow and look beyond what we WANT in someone else and look for what we NEED. This is the part where God would come in and provide that partner that complements us the best. Of course we would have to do our part in giving that person the time of day. In order to reach that fulfillment we need to take a risk, a calculated risk but a noble one.

P.s. I know it has been a while since I updated my blog but I will be posting some stories about the summer and what I've been up to since getting back from DC.

Awesome night on the town

2006-06-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

I figure I should give an update as to some of the things I've been up to since my first week here. I've been feeling in the dancing mood so my purpose was to go out and have a grandiose time. This town has so many things to do all over the place, and it is culturally rich with many places serving different types of people from different background. Of course, this spells that my weekends will now be spent out on the town :)

I went out Saturday night with a friend of mine for a night on the town. It was actually precipitated by the fact that I confronted Bobby (the Oklahoman) about eating all the food that me and Andrew (the Canadian) had bought. The 3 of us had bought massive groceries 2 weeks ago but of course food disappears and is eaten, which is perfectly normal. The thing is that me and Andrew would go to the small market next door to buy chips, snacks, bread, etc and Bobby would flat out eat it all without asking or paying for anything. He's vegetarian so apparently that gives him the right to eat the rest of the food that we have. I was quite ticked off that the cereal that I had bought was almost all gone and I hadn't even had a bowl of it at that time. So I confronted him about it that if he hasn't bought the food, he doesn't need to look at it, touch it, open it, much less eat it. He didn't like that but Andrew agreed with me and Carlos (the Ecuadorian always buys his own stuff). Oh well, minor spat that got me ticked off but it resulted in making me want to leave the apartment and go out.

I hadn't been feeling in the mood to go out during the day because: 1) morning services on the Sabbath are killer, and 2) I didn't know which place to go. After the spat I showered and Carlos had told us about this Latin club called "Sesto Senso" so that's where Christina and I headed to. We found the place pretty quickly but I wanted to hit a bar first to get my head straight. I tell ya man, going out in DC is expensive. Christina and I had a couple of beers at $5 a pop. I had 2 beers and she had only one so there goes my first $15 of the night.

After that I decide I'm ready to hit the Latin club we had been told of. A big black guy is the bouncer and we hand him our ID's and he tells us, "You guys are coming from far away." I tell him that we're interning in DC for the summer. Of course he noticed that my last name is "Martinez" so he tells me how I should come on Friday nights because it's Latin night and all they play is Latin music. He doesn't even notice Christina is there since I'm yappin' it up with him and we're talking about music and such. Too bad Latin night is on Fridays but Christina thought it was cool that the guy wasn't checking her out. I told her that's what happens when people hang out with me, I deflect attention from the people around me :) Oh and the guy gave me the best news of the night: they played r&b, hip hop, reggaeton, latin music, dancehall, etc..everything but techno. I was happy until I proceeded to pay the $10 cover for each person. There goes $20 and bumps the night's expenditure to $35 so far.

We get into the club and I'm feeling it man. The people, the music, the culture, the vibe...I felt at home. I kept telling that to Christina throughout the night because they were playing the music I grew up listening to. First thing we do is try to order 2 beers but the bartenders are horrible. She was going to do the ordering and I was paying but since the bartenders were girls, they were only serving the guys. After about a 15 minute wait we finally get our beer (I ordered and signaled in Spanish for 2 Coronas and she brought 4). I paid for the 2 beers and no tip for the girl since she was terrible. There went another $10 and now I'm up to $45 for the night.

For the next 3-4 hours we danced to everything that was played. Lemme tell you, it was a great selection of music. They played everything from Top 40 to Miami Sound Machine to Daddy Yankee, Wisin y Yandel, to T.I. to old Michael Jackson...everything that is danceable. The cool thing about the night is that we were actually dancing the entire time. No bumpin' n' grindin' or anything questionable like that. I was a dancing machine with my unorthodox/Latin style that cannot be reproduced. I kept twirlin' and spinnin' the girl and was teaching her some of the basic steps. Christina said she had a great time and that I was a good date :) She even paid for a round of beer and I paid for the last one which put my total at $55 for the entire night. Crazy stuff I tell you.

Thanks to the fact that the Metro runs till about 3am (and not the usual midnight hours) on Fridays and Saturdays we left the club at about 1:30ish and headed back to the apartment complex. Overall one of the most fun nights I have been able to experience. I told my boss about it and she suggested some places where they play awesome music AND there's no cover charge. Yep, I'm hitting those places this weekend. And instead of going to the bar I'm bringing the bar to my place. I'm loading for the weekend by taking advantage of the specials on beer cases. Bring on the weekend! And yes, I have an amazingly cool boss who knows what places are cool hangouts :)

Did I mention already that I love this town? :)

P.s. I have to take advantage of the $12.49 12 pack of Corona special that the shop next to where I work has. The only problem I can think of is trying to travel on the Metro with a case of beer. Doesn't look too good but who cares when beer is that cheap. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Not ready to make nice

2006-06-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't know posting Zarqawi's picture would cause such a fuss. I just thought that after all the days, weeks, months, and years of a difficult struggle, a victory in the War on Terror should be acknowledged. If you feel grossed out about a truly evil man getting what he deserves, that's your problem. I've seen grosser and worse things in my life. If you think his death is not a significant event then you should ask the families of those who were victimized by his reign of terror. U.S. soldiers, Iraqis, Kurds, foreign nationals, press corps members, men, fathers, women, mothers, children have all suffered because of his actions. Being here in Washington, DC has shown me how the morale of the people can be boosted by such news. Yeah, things are murky and it's going to be a struggle but at least for those fighting in Iraq FOR US and for the FREEDOMS we enjoy, it is a morale booster. It shows that the US can bring justice to the enemy and that the hard work of those soldiers is paid off in this case. It didn't matter who I talked to about this piece of news, people were feeling upbeat about this because it was significant. The job's not done, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

A week of adventures

2006-06-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

My fellow bloggers, here I am after my first week in DC and I will start off by stating the obvious: I love it. After living in Puerto Rico for 18 years and being in a city for that amount of time, having everything no more than a half-hour away and then living in the farmland of Iowa, being in DC is a refreshing experience. I love going into the city, seeing the amazing architecture and design exemplified by its buildings and the urban planning that shaped the city. It is simply amazing and a sight to behold. Plus, for a political and history junkie like myself, being immmersed in the city where it all originates from is a cool experience.

I think I left off the last blog with all the stories up to last Friday and there's been plenty that has gone on since then. On the Sabbath I was picked up by Mrs. Clore and Brittney bright and early at 9:15am so there was no sleeping in for me :( I have to say that the Clores are an amazing family, full of life, joy, and great stories :) Mr. Clore was going to be arriving with his son Ray because they wanted to hang out and spend some time together so Mrs. Clore proceeded to introduce me to just about everyone. I have to say she's a pretty big deal, always smiling and optimistic...amazing qualities. The entire family is a blast and have so many amazing stories and interesting insights on so many issues. I enjoy the talks on the way to and from Church. I've learned a lot and it's only been 2 Sabbaths :)

Last Sunday, after working out and running in the morning, Andrew (the Canadian), Bobby (the Oklahoma guy), and I went to the Federal Mall to do some sightseeing. It was pretty packed on the way there because it was Memorial Day weekend and the entire town was full of people from all over the place. We went to the Air and Space Museum, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial (incredibly touching), and the White House. Andrew took plenty of pictures on his digital camera, I took a bunch with my disposable one (still waiting for my digital one to come in the mail) and my cell phone and we walked a couple of miles throughout. It was really hot and humid, no wind whatsoever...a bit of a problem but it's ok.

After the adventureous day on Sunday we came back and basically did nothing the rest of the day. Of course after all the walking I didn't feel like doing anything. I came up with the idea of making dinner on Monday and invite people over for some socializing. We needed to do some massive grocery shopping so we went and got all the things that we needed and got back with plenty of time to be able to cook some spaghetti. I bought some sauce but I added all the good, yummy ingredients to make it taste really, really good. I made enough food for 7-8 people but there were only 5 of us so there was plenty of food leftover for the rest of the week. Yay for me! :)

Tuesday came and I anxiously awaited for the phone call from NHCSL that would let me know whether I would receive the job I had interviewed for. I had an interview set up for Wednesday with SER National Program and I was going to honor it regardless of whether I had received an offer or not but as the afternoon hours kept passing by I became very nervous. I started thinking, "Well, it seems like I'm going to have to blow them away on Wednesday since it seems like I'm getting nowhere." Thankfully I got a call from the Executive Director from NHCSL and she told me they decided to go with me for the internship and of course I was ecstatic to receive such news and it also included a cool surprise. My boss told me that they would also extend a stipend at the end of the summer to help fray for the costs of the traveling and such. It's not a lot but at least it's enough to help pay for some things. That's God for you, working in so many ways that you can't see at the moment. I don't deserve any of this but it still works out in some way. Simply amazing. That's all I've got to say.

I went to my interview on Wednesday and I felt pretty comfortable but I was already leaning towards NHCSL because I could start working, making myself feel productive, and finally get out of the apartment. I started my job on Thursday and as I was taking my lunch break I ran into Vice President Dick Cheney's motorcade. The SUV's were barely a couple of feet away from me and I looked as to see who was inside of the car and much to my surprise I see Dick Cheney and his wife!!! It was pretty cool sight to see, all on my first day on the job. I love it already :)

I was taking this crazy Foreign Policy class in which two other people from my building were attending as well but they went AWOL for the second session. I was left without my two friends and after I got back from class I decided to drop it and switch to something easier. Something about receiving 200+ pages of readings after every class made it very unattractive and I have plenty of work with my internship and the TWC stuff. I switched it to Homeland Security which will apparently lead to some better opportunities and a "lighter" courseload. I have a friend in that class so it's all good there too :)

Oh I met a cool girl named Christina Barton. Think "The O.C.'s" Mischa Barton but only cuter :) She's awesome AND politically conservative. A rare thing to find nowadays in DC. She's originally from Annapolis, MD but has been living in Cedar Rapids, IA the past 9-10 years. I asked her which school she went to and she said "Central College" and I was like..."oh, Pella, Iowa. I had 3 friends graduate from there the past couple of years. Why would you move from Maryland to Iowa?" It was due to her dad's job, which would be the only acceptable excuse. She was surprised that someone would know where Pella was and that I knew it was basically a little Dutch colony in the middle of Iowa. She vaguely remembers Cathy, since they went to school together and all. I don't think she knew Ann (I had to ask if she knew the notorious Rankin girls :)). To my astoundment there are a bunch of people from Iowa with TWC this summer. I think I've run into at least 15 or so of them. And I thought I had left Iowa in the midwest this summer.

On Friday I went into work at 9 and proceeded to make some phone calls for information our organization needed for a conference in South Carolina in the month of June. I took initiative during the day and decided to translate the biography of one of the senators attending such conference. She's a state senator from Puerto Rico and her bio was only available in Spanish so I decided to take it upon myself to do the work. My supervisor said I didn't have to do that but I wanted to start contributing right away. Plus, it makes me feel like I am actually doing for the organization. Here's the link to the organization: http://www.nhcsl.org/about.html

That just about sums up the week in DC. Sabbath and Pentecost services were wonderful, inspiring messages all around. This should be my first full week of my job so this one should dictate how the rest of the summer goes. Not a whole lot going on other than work, class, roommate adventures (a long story by itself). Oh, I almost forgot to mention something the Kerrman would definitely appreciate. Of course it revolves around food. Some of the girls we know from the 8th floor came over Saturday night and brought us brownies. Oh so yummy. Now we have good stuff to eat for a couple of nights :)

Ya'll have a good week and stay out of trouble...I'll try my best to stay out of it :)

Safely "home"

2006-05-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here I am fellow blog readers, a tad bit late with my post about my travels to the nation's capital but with good stories nonetheless. I've got pretty interesting stories so far and I've only been here for two and a half days. I can't wait to see what happens the rest of the summer :)

Ann and I woke up at about 3:30am on Wednesday to get ready to leave by 4 to the airport. Ann took a shower while I stumbled to try to wake up and get my stuff in order. We did really well too as we left at 4 and embarked on the 45 minute drive to the Des Moines airport under a thunderstorm. We got to see some pretty cool lightning displays and had an awakening experience. As Ann's driving along the highway with the rain just pouring as hard as it could some car decided not to stop at the STOP sign on the fork of the road. This meant that it almost hit my side of the car and we didn't know whether it didn't see us or what. In any case, we kept going along hoping that was the end of the unexpected happenings.

We got to the airport and went to the NWA check-in booth to start getting things sorted. I give the lady my suitcases so they can be weighed and I don't think there were going to be any problems. Apparently I read wrongly on the NWA website when I purchased my tickets that the luggage had a 75lbs limit. I thought 75lbs would be quite a stretch of what a suitcase would be capable of holding but thought nothing of it. That limit was restricted to international flights and the limit for domestic flights was 50lbs. As luck would have it my suitcase weighed about 9lbs over the limit and I had to find a way to switch things quickly. The first thing I took out was my Bible since it weighed about 5lbs by itself (I have a huge Bible now) and since I kinda need it for Church and for life I had to keep it :) I put it in my massive Adidas slingpack and proceeded to take out shoes, and towels from the suitcase and add them to one of my carryons. I got the suitcase to weigh an even 50lbs and then got the suitbag-case checked-in and it was under the limit. So I said goodbye to Ann and continued to the next phase of my journey.

I waited for about an hour for the plane to start loading and we left and arrived safely and quickly to our first stop in Detroit. I had quite a bit of time to kill in Detroit before my connecting flight. I read the last bit of my ESPN Magazine and I talked to my mom on the phone for a while to let know of my whereabouts and ease her worries. I hopped on to my plane to D.C. hoping for a smooth arrival and the hope that I could get to my apartment safely and start settling in. I arrived at Reagan National Airport (I love the sound of it...it's conservatism at its greatest :)) at about noon and my luggage came out pretty quickly. I met a girl who studies at Iowa State and is in the TWC program. She's in a different program but under the TWC umbrella so we talked for a bit as we waited for our luggage. I was debating on whether I should take the Shuttle Bus or a cab because I was so anxious in just getting to my place. The girl was taking a cab but I hedged since I didn't know how much a cab would cost, plus the Shuttle Bus has a fixed fee although it would take a bit longer. Even though I didn't think a cab would cost more than $26 I ended up taking the shuttle bus and I think I got my apartment building along with someone else and got checked in.

After doing some paperwork stuff and getting checked in I took all four of my luggage pieces (laptop backback, slingpack, 2 suitcases) up the elevator and to the 19th floor. I then realized that if the building were to light up in fire I would probably not be able to get out, but I was still excited :) I opened the door and noticed that the TV was on and there was one of the roommates unpacking his stuff and we introduced each other. Here's the kick, he's Canadian so not even in D.C. I can escape from the Canadian presence :) He's pretty cool and all and I picked the empty rooom that was left and called all the friends and family that I arrived safely to D.C. and was unpacking my things. Of course calls to Mom, the Rankins, the Wilsons, and mostly everyone who knew I was traveling were made so I could ease their worries. Had a pretty good talk with Ashley too and I told her I would try to take as many pictures as possible and post them on Facebook so she could have something to do during her summer :) I've got to make good on my promise.

The hours passed and I watched some TV and noticed we have about 200 channels in our cable system. The apartment is overall very nice but not the exotic thing it was advertised on the housing website. There are no Internet jacks in the room...the only way to connect to the web is through the single cable router next to the TV in the living room. So right now we just take turns using the web on our laptops so we'll most likely pony up for an extra router or something. Oh and since the connection acts up we basically have to turn the router off when we plug in the cable to our laptops. Ridiculous.

On another front our apartment basically came with no pots or pans. There was no pan and the only pot available was a vintage 1970's, rust-filled device. So of course we would have to go out shopping for the necessities. We did that yesterday as we took the Metro to the stop that is closest to the mall and a Target. Finally we would be able to partake of American capitalism since all we can see out of our window are a bunch of trees, the parking lot and an apparent interstate behind the massive trees. So we go take the Metro and try to find the "nearby" Target and we can't see anything. Me being the no-nonsense kind of guy that I am I decide to ask some random guy where Target is and he directs us the way that we should go. Yeah the "nearby" Target was a 15 minute walk, about a mile from the Metro and then walking around the biggest, grandest Target in history.

The biggest task in itself was figuring out what pots and pans to purchase. I kept looking at all these aluminum pots & pans sets and I knew that would not be a smart purchase. I remember my mother and Kim once telling me that cooking with aluminum utensils is a health hazard but the guys wouldn't believe me. I called Kim and mom to confirm the fact so I could be sure. We found this awesome copper bottom/stainless steel 8 piece set and we got that. We bought some other stuff like laundry detergent, toilet paper, etc. The interesting part comes in us carrying this back about 15 minutes back to the Metro stop. As we're walking back we stop at Papa John's to order pizza so it could be delivered to our apartment and hopefully the delivery guy wouldn't beat us to our place. The guy at the register must have thought we were playing a prank on him or something but we were able to buy pizza and continued our march to the station.

In the midst of all this, we notice how foolish we look carrying all this stuff. The Canadian is carrying a 12-roll of toilet paper, the white southern guy carrying a couple of grocery bags, and the Puerto Rican carrying the box with the cookware. Quite a trio if I do say so myself :) We got to the station and noticed three girls with Target bags and a rolling suitcase. "Genius" I thought, only girls could come up with an awesome idea like that so as to make the shopping experience easier. The Canadian notices girls and the Puerto Rican guy goes into action by being the outgoing guy and initiates conversation. It seemed like they were part of TWC so I didn't think it would be harmful to get some talkin' going on :) They were pretty cool and we started sharing stories as to what our apartments have and didn't have. The girls' place had pots but their cable didn't work. The typical guy that I am, I'd rather have the 200+ cable channels than pots and pans. Pretty cool people overall...the program is challenging though but it should still be fun.

I've noticed I haven't talked about anything regarding my internship. I got an interview placement on Thursday and it was about 2-3 blocks from Capitol Hill. I would say say it's even closer than that. The cool thing is that if I do receive the internship I interviewed for I just take the Metro straight to Union Station and not have to worry about transferring or anything like that. Let's see what happens in that regard. I have an interview with another agency on Wednesday afternoon so that should be cool as well. My first class is Tuesday night and it's a long weekend this weekend so it should be cool. If I get the internship with the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislatures I'll work Tuesday-Friday. That'd be cool, plus I'll be really close to Capitol Hill.

I hope this story is eventful enough for all of you and that it's kept you amused. I'll try my best to provide good entertainment for ya'll :) Have a great Sabbath guys!

Going, going, gone

2006-05-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Washington, D.C. bright and early tomorrow at 6am. That's when my flight leaves so I have to wake up at 3:30, leave by 4:00 and make it to the airport at least 75 minutes prior to the plane leaving. It should be fun, I make a stop in Detroit and then land in D.C. at around noon. I then have to take the shuttle bus and all the heavy luggage to North Bethesda, Maryland where I will be living for the summer. Oh the joy, I've got some good stories so far and surely more to come once I get to the nation's capital :)

The Journey

2006-05-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

I went too long in between posts but what can you do when you're in my shoes. In the month of April I was saddled with 3 papers, finals preparation, work, internship information, sleep, sports, more work, and beer. Ummm...scrap the sleeping part but you get the picture. I was out of this world busy as I finished up my last semester of undergrad.

When I read Annette's blog I see how contrasting and different we go about things as we approached the same milestones. She's all organized, packing beforehand, finding storage with plenty of time, and she's going to keep going for a Master's degree. You go girl! On the otherhand, I decided that I'm too burned out from school to go for a Master's immediately, I have half of my possessions packed in my car, I have an opportunity to go to D.C. this summer, but I find myself hesitant to accept it. Partly it is about money issues, partly because I am afraid of stepping out of my "comfort zone".

I have had an internship opportunity with The Washington Center for the past year. I had it deferred from last summer to this year for a number of reasons. What attracted me to the program was that this organization places students in internship positions with different agencies, lobbying groups, private corporations according to the interests expressed in the essay we submit. You get to attend a lecture series with important in the government, meet a whole lot of people, and become interconnected with a network of powerful people. Very few of the internships are paid and since it is an academic program as well there is a tuition fee to pay along with room and board. The room and board is not too bad since it is an upscale apartment, fully furnished with the whole shabang, but combined with tuition the program comes to about $9,500. I can get financial help and all but it is mostly through loans and I wasn't exactly wanting to add about $10,000 more to my student loan. Hence the indecision of committing firmly with TWC and having a brief flirtation with graduating in May with no experience on my resume and head back to PR and start the job hunt there.

Graduation came and went and I did not do the paperwork needed to switch some things around so I am done academically but not officially. Go figure. I had applied with TWC with the hope that I could work for a cool agency that I know I could contribute to (through my academic knowledge) such as the State Department, Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI, or be able to work at the Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner's office in DC or the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs office. Something sorta close to my interests would have been fine. Nevertheless I don't hear back from my program advisor about any of these. I do have an offer to do some work regarding labor rights violations in Latin America. I put LA in my essay, but labor rights and economic policy aren't my forte...it leans more towards the government/institutions/politics side of things. Basically I did not want to get stuck in an internship where I was not enjoying or learning something from it and having to foot a $10 grand bill on top of it.

I haven't been fair to TWC because I've been pushing this to the last minute. I'm going to be in D.C. at the end of May, I just don't know where. I did send in my housing contract earlier this week so I could have a place to live when I get there, regardless of program. The kicker was two days ago when I received a call out of left field. It was a representative from HACU (Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities) calling me about potential placement with an agency. I had applied to HACU in February because they actually pay their interns, they place them in federal agencies according to their interests, and (this one is key because I thought I could pull this one off) they target Hispanics students for their placements. I saw this and I thought this would be perfect because not only would I not have to worry about financial matters but since I am a good Puerto Rican student this would be a shoo-in right? No, the only thing I heard from them was that they had received my application. So the months go by and I hear nothing from HACU and I see my student loans bloating to an even bigger unimaginable number. That is until I get the phone call from HACU saying they've got a position available with the Department of Labor and wanted to know if I would like to be referred to them. I'm thinking, "uhhh, sure...it wouldn't hurt even if it's more labor related stuff" and I get Dept. of Labor will be calling the 5-7 other people in the next week with hopefully a decision by the middle of the week. Oh man, this is getting precariously close. The check-in date for TWC is May 24 and I have yet to purchase my ticket because of all this uncertainty!! Craziness! So now there might be a door opening but I don't really know until I get the call and ace the interview. The job did sound like a lot of data entry, office stuff that really doesn't interest me but it's the Feds, they're all interconnected :)

On the surface all this physical stuff has kept me busy while I've rotted on the inside. It wasn't exactly the highest point of my life because of the things I was doing. I allowed myself to become hurt due to life's issues and allowed it to eat my insides. One thing I hate is to have something taken away from me. I love having the excitement inside of me when talking to someone or just thinking about them. Yet it seems that my life can be described by having those feelings be taken away from me. Love and relationships aren't supposed to be complicated yet we make it that way. How are we supposed to live life fully if we're afraid of to let something good happen to us/other people. Just when we think that we're doing the other person a favor by not getting involved with them we realize that we're just really acting out of a selfish attitude. Instead of protecting the person we "care" about we're really protecting ourselves and thus only really worrying about the "me" and "I" instead of the "we". Real outgoing concern puts both people's interests at the forefront and you can only know how something is going to end up if you give it a shot. You don't know the ending unless you take the journey.

And that ladies and gentlemen sums up my last month. And there's more craziness in the days and weeks ahead. Oh the joy.

Late night thoughts

2006-04-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

I find myself wandering where my next steps will lead me. I struggle to find the ultimate purpose of what I am to achieve in this life. I have been given this vast knowledge of Truth and where we are all supposed to get to but I wonder ow many of us will really make it. I know that by staying the course the reward will be exponentionally greater than my imagination can dream of yet I wonder if I have the courage to continue battling.

It seems as though life is full of factors and variables that one does not think are relevant at certain times. When you least expect it though...BOOM! It hits you like a line drive off the sweet spot of the bat, Albert Pujols style. You know you've heard it before. You overcome an obstacle/sin/problem in your life only to be hit in the face with another seemingly unforseen problem that you have to now overcome.

There are so many unknowns and question marks in my life right now that I get easily annoyed or frustrated when the same questions keep coming up. I mean, if I knew the answers to these questions then I'd proudly and loudly announce them for the whole world to see and hear. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate people's concerns and curiousity but it just adds anxiety and worries when the same questions are repeated day after day, week after week. Hopefully I will figure it out, then I'll announce it and people will be appeased.

I've never been one to appease people. I sometimes say I aim to but in reality I like to prove people wrong. Give me a challenge, tell me I can't do or achieve a certain goal...it is what I have thrived on for the last twenty two years. I also feel like I have lived too long with a chip on my shoulders...a feeling of displacement because I am a stranger in a land that is foreign to me. I don't want to go into a history lesson but there are stark cultural differences that people often mistake as "if it's different, then it must be wrong." That is partly why I become defensive about certain things, because I feel out of place, not included, or simply unwanted.

I would urge some of you that if you are interested in reading a good book to pick up a real thought provoker. Granted, I am not one to read a book for recreational fun but this one will always stand out as a favorite of mine. Esmeralda Santiago's "When I Was Puerto Rican" is an amazing work of art. She describes the dilemma many of us boricuas face when living in the island, moving to the states, visiting/moving back to the island and feeling out of place throughout the entire journey. There are certain issues at play that many don't care to think about, but they are very real. If you care to read it, trust me it will make you think.

The last two weeks have been incredibly hectic. Preparing for the Passover was an event in itself, one that I feel was not up to par with my first Passover. Maybe it was because of the difference between your first and subsequent Passovers, but I know there are other things on the horizon that have kept me stumbling. School has become more and more hectic as I write this very blog. I have a 10 page paper due at 3pm tomorrow for my Immigration History class. Too many things came up that hindered me from writing it sooner but I tend to thrive on pressure.

I've got the broad shoulders to take the extra weight on and try to carry myself through anything but my body is breaking down. I can't keep relying on my own strength to get through life. I need to work on my dependence on God yet I find it hard to do sometimes because I dislike depending on other people for anything. Too many time I've been let down or hurt but I know God won't do that to me because He's always been there. If I could only program myself to go to Him first and foremost every single time I know that would produce a profound difference. Not much makes sense this early in the morning but at the same time, this is when I do my best thinking.

Feast is looking like an interesting proposition. I find myself torn between going somewhere where all my friends will be there or just escaping the almost fake world that scenario creates. The past and the memories remind me all too often of last year's lows and I cannot relive that same experience. In a sense, last year's Feast began a personal downfall of sorts even though that is a contradiction when you think of what the purpose of the Feast is. What do you do in this situation?

Enough of my ranting...I have a paper to finish and blogging does not help get it written in time for class.

Priceless

2006-04-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Stealing a cue from Annette's "Memory of the Moment" I had to quit my lackadaisical studying for this post. This memory is from earlier this week when I was talking to my Grandma on the phone and she mentioned how I should not be driving a lot because "la gasolina está cara." Gasolina is Spanish for gas and as she says this to me I can hear my Mom singing the chorus the Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" in our typical pop culture/hip hop/reggaeton ways. I had always wondered where I got my uncanny ability to relate one word to a specific song or artist and after many years of wondering I have found out that it comes from my own MOTHER and GRANDMOTHER. Yep, two of the coolest ladies ever! :)

Why'd you go and make things so complicated?

2006-04-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

I appreciate the comments from everyone on my last post. I think it is the post that has garnered the most response since last summer (after my Grant Hill experience). I would like to type more on this and other subjects, but unfortunately I have an astronomy midterm staring me in the face. How is it possible that I can wait until 2am for the serious studying to begin? And I am possibly going to take a nap beforehand because I am so tired. This does not bode well for a test that I have to take at 6:30pm. :(

Useless! A part of me wants to not care about this midterm but the "panicky" student in me is saying to cram as much as I can and pull off another good grade for this semester. It shall be a long night/morning indeed. I can't skip out on my journalism class because the prof might give a surprise quiz and I already missed one this semester so there goes my freebie "lowest score" one. Blah...life cannot get any suckier for me this week.

Fortunately though Thursday night is looking like a dandy of a night. One of my friends from work is playing a gig with his band at night. I think his band starts playing at around 11ish and I'm hoping the night includes some awesome music and cheap drinks. I'm celebrating after the drubbing my brain will take from astronomy...

Failure To Launch

2006-04-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a night to be remembered. I finally discovered a sort of social life and went to the Irish Pub with a friend of mine from work. Pretty cheap if you ask me too. It was only $4 to get both a Long Island's Iced Tea AND some Whiskey & Coke. Not bad if you ask me. In fact, I was surprised by the pricing. The only downside is the smokeyness of the place and the fact that I now smell like cigs. Blah, oh well...it was good night.

They played Twista's "Celebrity Overnight" and I immediately thought of Jon and his now-famous "Gentlemen Overnight" remix for the kosher crowd of camp. I wanted to bust a move but decided against it since I was having a great conversation with my friend Amanda from work. She thought it was nice that I paid for everything, but I told her that's the way it's supposed to be :)

I've been thinking about many things lately and I seem to favor opening myself up tonight. I know I have issues to deal with in regards to my past and my relationship failures or whatever. At the same time, I feel that I have a serious problem in regards to the relationship area of my life. I have the fear that I will care (or love) for the person I'm interested more than they will care or love me. That's a serious issue with me because I easily trust one person because I give that person the benefit of the doubt and I always expect the best in people (especially Church people). That's why it's been hard for me to deal with people who betray that trust and that belief that I used to have in them. I'll give that trust pretty easily but once I'm crossed the wrong way then you have earned my distrust and my disdain (almost).

I wish people would mean what they say. I wish people could just express the truth in their feelings. I wish people wouldn't think twice or thrice about what they say. If there's anything I ask of you guys...MEAN WHAT YOU SAY, SAY WHAT YOU MEAN. Don't take words or your feelings lightly. If you feel something or are thinking of something then communicate it to someone you trust, a good friend. And when you say something then have it mean something. It bothers me when people seem to lack conviction/firm belief in what they say. It goes back to what I said earlier. I despise flip flopping and the way some have their opinions change in a way that shows a lack of conviction. I may be a lot of things but I do not think people will ever label me as someone lacking passion/conviction for an issue I care about.

I guess I'm hoping that the person I find is just as much into a "relationship" as I am. That quite probably is my biggest fear...caring for someone in a way they are not ready to care for me or in the same manner as I care for them. Oh well, it is part of my life journey and that is something I must overcome or understand. Oh well, I'll call it a night and write more tomorrow. That's right, I'm keeping my blog updated in a deeper sense and more than just once a month or once a week. Ya'll have a good night.

Smile big for everyone, even when you know what they've done

2006-04-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

I return to the blogging world with peace of mind and thankful to all of you who commented on my last post. I always enjoy receiving and reading comments on my blog mainly because it lets me know who exactly reads my blog. It also is heartwarming to receive words of encouragement from my friends. Thanks again everybody, I love you all.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty amazing, with loads of fun, thinking, analyzing, studying, and laughing involved. My spring break trip was simply amazing. I never went into detail about it but I did get to do more than when I went last year. I got to drive quite a bit on the 401...quite an interesting experience indeed. I got my car stuck in mud, got to push a truck out of the mud, and was able to see and read a bit about important Canadian military history. Yes, much to my amazement there is such a thing in the history of Canada :)

I got to work out and play basketball with a bunch of Asians in the university. According to Kristen about 50%-60% of the students at Waterloo are of Asian descent. I didn't think Canada was home to that many Asian people...I thought the U.S. west coast was the homebase of Asian operations :) There were some spirited basketball games involved. It was surprising to see that much ball-hogging and lack of defense displayed by most of the players. It got me quite irritated and Kristen got to see how intense I become with basketball. She was sitting courtside watching the games and noticed that I became very serious. I have fun when I play but I also become very serious because basketball to me is almost like a religious experience to me. I like the game to be played the right way: move the ball around, make the extra pass, pick a good shot, play defense, rebound, box out...all the little things. The game becomes increasingly frustrating when it is not played efficiently. Oh well, that's enough for my sport rant.

After spending most of the week of March 13-17 in Canada, I made a bee line to one of the best Midwestern cities in history, Gurnee, Illinois. The drive was quite a somber one for many a reasons. I won't get into it but it was a long drive and I spent a lot of it thinking, talking to myself, calling my mom and grandma, and singing along to my music collection. I left early from Waterloo so that I could try and beat Chicago rush hour traffic and I did for the most part. Chicago has a ban on talking on the cell phone while driving and I was stuck staring at the Sears Tower for like 20 minutes talking with Jon. He proceeded to tell me, "don't worry, our cops are more worried about racial profiling than they are about drivers talking on their cell phones." :) Quite possibly one of the best lines he's ever said to me while carrying a conversation. I got to Jon's house at about 4 and we proceeded to chill, talk about my trip, and make plans about the incoming weekend and our eating plans.

I have this uncanny luck to visit the Milwaukee area when they have their game nights focusing on basketball, football, and volleyball. It's quite a blast and we then proceed to eat some late fast food at Taco Bell as the crowning achievement of the night. Jon had told me earlier that they had not had a good debate with Mrs. Diekmeier in quite a while. So of course I told Jon that I would take care of it and provided a good front for about 3 hours. I have to say though that the attack unleashed by Mrs. Diekmeier and Ruthie was vicious but I needed it and I held my own for as long as I could. I tip my hat to both of them :)

The Wisconsin Dells weekend was exactly what I hoped it would be: great messages, great people, friends, fellowship, sleepless nights, and late night food runs. It was the 3rd weekend in a row that I had seen my Milwaukee friends (it seems like I see them more than my own congregation) so that it always a great way to end the week. Desiree, Josh, and Ann described the weekend pretty well so I won't go into more detail about it. I will only urge you that if you see Mark Oliver to have him tell you the story behind the 2am Wendy's run. He is quite possibly the best storyteller in the Church, a great sense of humor and very detailed :)

I've started to realize more and more that I constantly have my mind working on fumes. I do too much thinking for my own good and that influences how my day and rest of the week go. It's good in a sense because remembering things helps me with my history classes. At the same time it doesn't do me any good to dwell on the mistakes of the past that bring guilt and leave a bad taste in my mouth. I was told that everytime I think about a specific past sin what it does is that it makes God remember instead of having him "forget as far as the east is from the west." That gives me something to think about or not think about...whatever the case may be. Let's see where I go from here...

I was confused...

2006-03-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

After much contemplation over what to post about I did not reach any sort of consensus within me. I have been doing a lot of thinking over many things in my life. This is usually the case when I do long road trips and have lots of time thinking, analyzing, and remembering over things as I drive for countless hours without stopping.

I went to Canada for my spring break which was to run from March 13-17 but I made sure I got my school work done beforehand. I was planning on staying overnight in Chicago to spend time with my best buddy Jonny G and do our usual late night talking about the deepest topics, those closest to our hearts. I left on Thursday 9th after staying up all night on Wednesday and got to Chi-town to spend some time with the G man. I broke my own record done this past Feast of staying up for 41 hours by being awake for a full 48 hours! Yep, pretty ridiculous yet you would be surprised what you are able to achieve with caffeine pills, lack of eating, driving, and conversatin' all night with 2 awesome people will do.

I would go into more detail about my trip but I'm just not feeling too well tonight. I've been doing too much thinking and that's a problem in itself. I'm in a contemplative mood yet I don't want to act on my instincts because I fear what may come out....

Martinism of the day

2006-02-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight I took my Politics in the Middle East midterm and it consisted of 30 questions. We basically wrote down everything in answering the questions. No multiple choice and a couple of annoying detailed questions that were a bit harder to answer than I expected. Anyways, one of the questions (I think it was the 3rd one) went like this: "In political science terms what does North and South mean/ refer to." As I read this I could not recall if we had discussed it in class so I skipped it and kept chuggin' along with the rest of the exam.

As I'm finishing the test I go back to the 3rd question and after much thinking I narrow it down to two possibilities. Option number 1: even though we are talking about Middle East politics I figure that in the world of political science "North and South" could be referring to the conflict in the U.S. Civil War. For some unknown reason I don't jot that down. Instead I decide to go biblical and answer that the North referred to the European continent and the South to the Muslim nations that battled each other during the wars of conquest/crusade/caliphate.

Ridiculous! I should get bonus points for being that creative ;) I know you guys will appreciate it more than my prof will, hehe.

A time to reflect...

2006-02-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

So February 20, 2006 came and went and it seemed quite unreal. For many of you it's just a regular day, no special meaning to it whatsoever. To me though it means 1 exact year since I was baptized. I had been thinking about that a lot recently since it has been a year and so many things have happened in that span of time.

I remember the day as if it was yesterday. I have always told people that I went through probably one of the worst weeks of my life as the big weekend came up. There was no other way of putting it...plain hell on earth for me in that week. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong and I was feeling nervous, awkward, and was close to backing out. I went into one of the room at the Blackmans' home (as we were all waiting for the Millich's to arrive) and started balling my eyes out in prayer. I was feeling so uneasy and scared but I knew if I backed out then that there would be no telling when I'd come close to making that decision again. I don't know how long I was in the room but it took me a while to compose myself. So many things that many people still don't know to this day were occurring in the background and I was feeling overwhelmed. Somehow though, God gave me the courage and the proverbial "kick in the butt" to make that decision and cement that commitment.

When I think of all the things that have happened ever since that day it amazes me how the past year has included incredible highs but also some very low lows. It's true when the minister tells you that the road doesn't get easier. In a way it does because now you have God's Spirit in you helping you but at the same time now the enemy decides to unleash everything in his arsenal to make you lose hope. I can say that I have grown in the past year, maybe not as much as I would have liked but there has been growth. The only reason there's been some stunt in that growth has been because of my own actions and my dealings.

I wanted to make this post longer and more reflective but it's really late and I need to rest my incredibly sore body. I'll save some for later I guess. This week is looking killer especially with the China and Cold War midterm staring at me (it's on Thursday).

Dish your thoughts

2006-02-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

In following the cue from two of my good friends, here is the link so you guys can choose whichever words best describe me. I hope you guys do, I think it'd be interesting to see what you guys say. The more descriptive post is coming later tonight after my intramural basketball game. Today is a pretty big day for me :)

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Martinsboulevard

Favorite Quote

2006-02-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

"Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran. A champion. Hate That. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved, for the exact same reasons."

Kobe Bryant

Cool Day Indeed

2006-02-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

Not a bad way to celebrate my 22nd year on this nice earth :) Thank you to everybody who sent a note wishing me a good day. It was very thoughtful of you guys (I think part of the credit should go to facebook as well for putting out the reminder, lol). It was a great day...by far the best b-day I've had in the states. It's always hard to be away from family but it was cool nonetheless.

Part of the reason is that I have realized that this is my last semester of college. Apparently that is huge news and I need to start thinking on what to do after college since I would be an "expert" in my field of study. My Mom, Dad, and Grandma all sent me a huge box with some of the coolest things ever. The heartwarming letters were the best though, I was on the verge of tears because of what they wrote (yep, it's that whole "wearing my emotions on my sleeve" thing). All I have ever wanted to accomplish was to make my family proud of my achievements and to a larger extent, live a good enough life that God can tell me at the end, "you've done well son." It doesn't really matter how I achieve those goals, the important thing was to make it happen. I hope I am able to because those two things mean more than any of the material things that this fragile life holds.

So my family sent me an incredibly AWESOME jacket with the letters "NY" embroided on the left side. It's gray with carolina blue and it is absolutely cool. I also got these nice brown pinstriped pants that I want to wear to Church badly, along with two pairs of jeans, one black, the other blue. The cool thing about the jeans is that their names are Wrangler "Chaos". I thought it was hilarious because "chaos" would kind of describe my personality and college studying habits pretty well :) I also got like a massive supply of things needed for a happy life and the wonderful cash donation to the "poor Hispanic student fund" :) I miss my family badly though, it's been hardest this past trip. I can only remember it being this hard after my first semester in college. I guess I've realized how good I've had it and how thankful I am to God for the set of parents and the family He gave me. They have had a profound influence in my view of the world and who I am. You would have to come to Puerto Rico in order to understand. It's an open invitation...take advantage while you can ;)

Apparently college doesn't really care about my boasting of my 22nd year on this fine earth so it has proceeded to load up next week with 2 midterms which I have yet to buckle down and study for. It is not looking very bright but I should pick up the slack sometime tomorrow and this weekend. If not then I'm in trouble. Nothing like putting a little added pressure on myself to make success seem sweeter :) Anyways, I'm out like domestic programs in the new Bush budget :)

Right Now

2006-02-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today and most of the week about things happening in the world. I am a firm believer in the fundamental battle of good vs. evil and how it is very present in the world. The problem is a lot of things are murky right now because of our lack of information or knowledge on a subject. I've been a supporter of the Iraq war in the sense that after 9/11 the U.S. needed to take offensive action towards its shadowy enemy. My main problem has been the lack of information the administration has given to the people. I know we are not supposed to know everything but the fact that the U.S. is supposed to be "disengaging" from Iraq yet more money is being pumped into something that has become almost inexplicable. No, I am not flip flopping position but I think the following lines would help understand the situation. If only liberals could understand that it's ok to disagree as long as support is shown to those performing such a meaningful sacrifice. This is an excerpt from Fort Minor's "Right Now" that was the most telling because it speaks volumes about how a musical artist actually writes about the truth instead of agreeing with the propaganda spit out by the press (whether it'd be CNN or Fox News). I never thought a musician would actually blame the press for drumming up the beat of the war drum and misleading a nation, instead of blaming the President. It's a good change of pace I guess. Here's how it goes:

Yo somebody right now is dropping his vote inside a box
And trying not to get shot in his throat
For the act of freedom right now somebody is stuck in Iraq
Hoping that he gets shipped back breathing
In a war that he's not really sure of the reasons
So we show our support when the press mislead them
Though we more then remain proud and salute the troops
Get some I know you boys got some work to do

I don't know why I decided to write about this or if it made any sense at all. I guess I just had it on my mind and wanted to drop a few lines. It's been a funky night anyways and it deserves a funky post.

Makes ya think sometimes...

2006-02-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

"But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust."

1 Timothy 1:8-11

This Is Your Bay Of Pigs

2006-01-31T21:21:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty good day overall. For some reason my professors were all about life lessons and giving advice for all of us. So the day starts off with my Journalism 101 lecture and my prof talking about books and reading and how impacting it can be in your life. Keep in mind that there are about 200+ students in class and he goes on about how we should search for someone who reads, if we take anything from the class he told us to look for a mate that reads. Here are the following quotes:
"There is nothing sexier than a well-read woman (or man)." "Find someone that is a reader and you will find youself an intellectually stimulating person."

Simply put, amazing. He was telling us to go out there and look for a person who reads, who can carry on a conversation, be knowledgeable...it was one of the best lectures I've been a part of during my collegiate career. Then there was my dance class with my instructor giving us an oath that we shall "spread the message and dance about freely" or something to that extent. She also made some mention of life lessons and how to cope with some stuff. Overall, it was a pretty good day.

So I'm notoriously behind on my schoolwork but the rest is going well. Working out is really going well, I'm feeling stronger and better every day. I went to the gym to shoot some basketball and found that my body was pretty sore and movement was limited. Good thing our game isn't till Thursday night, I should be rested up by then. I missed the State of the U tonight by our Prez, I was stuck in my 3 hour Middle East class. It was worth it though because the professor said that some of my analysis were dead-on with what's going on in the world. I left a little bit early so I could catch The Shield. I'm telling you the 5th Season is jam-packed with action, plot-twists, and everything in between.

I have been chattin' up the phone line a lot the past couple of nights. I will have to thank my good ol' buddy Jon (and our immense overanalyzations) and the coolest person I know. Too bad she's way over in California :) Of course I'm talking about Desiree and I don't know how but somehow our conversations just last a long time. It's pretty fun though since we talk about almost everything going on in life and apparently I am suave guy. I dunno about that but I'll definitely take the props :) I am definitely glad that I went to KC for the costume ball this past year. It opened up the line of communication with people that I had not talked to extensively before. It's pretty cool to be able to do that although I am stuck with too many classes and too much work to be able to call everybody I want.

Anyways, that's all for tonight. I hope tomorrow is just as good of a day and that I learn more than just textbook material :)

Wise morning words

2006-01-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

"For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness."

1 Thessalonians 4:7

Best Game Of My Intramural Career

2006-01-26T22:54:00.000-08:00

It's been the typical time in between posts so I figured since I had something to talk about I would go ahead and give an update on the week's events. It hasn't been too bad of a week. The only problems come because of my own lack of discipline and self-control rather than anything or anyone out to do me wrong.

I had a pretty bad night the other night though. I could not figure out why it happened the way it did but it was just not good at all. I could not fall asleep because these images kept spinning inside of my head. That is not a bad thing most of the time but it was just plain horrible that specific night because of WHAT was inside of my head. All my indiscretions from the past 4-5 years of my life were being replayed constantly in my mind. I was not thinking about them at all. They just popped in and I could not stop what was going on. I think it went on for about two hours and I noticed how in every situation there was an escape route that I did not take. Possible things that could have been said or done to avoid the scenarios or events but the carnal self took over. I know I've been forgiven for those actions, but there's something inside of me that still feels certain failure because of it. I did know better, I was raised a certain way, I have firm conviction in what I believe and what I have been taught, but why was it that I did not do the critical thinking when it was happening? Another thing to ponder in this life of mine...

I would say more on that, but I'll save it for tomorrow when I have some more time to write. I have some astronomy homeword due on Friday by 5pm that I have yet to start. Way to procrastinate Martin...you sure know how to get your school act together. Three weeks into school and I have read a total of 2 chapters for all my classes combined. And that was for my political science course! Agh, I'll definitely catch up this weekend since there's no sports on TV to keep me distracted, but it seems like there's ALWAYS some sort of distraction. You know what I am talking about. It is God's way of showing His sense of humor on us guys and they are called girls :) Not a bad problem to have though, they keep you humble ;)

So we had our second basketball intramural game on Thursday night and it was a good game. I got to Beyer Hall at around 10:30pm and started shooting around so I could get ALL my bad shots out of the way before the game :) When I play basketball it seems like the first five minutes of the game I have some sort of nervousness or anxious energy and I do not play under control. It was not like that at all this time around and it showed.

We start the game and the other team was much better than the first team we played last week. They were taller, quicker, better shooters, and they set some good screens. Nonetheless, I come out of the gates on fire making the first 10 points for our team. It didn't matter where I was shooting from. I hit a couple of threes and a couple of jumpers and kept the team close since we came out of the gates a bit slow. It was by far the best I had played in an intramural game at ISU in my 4 years of playing.

Even though I was making my shots (and they weren't easy ones either, some of them were right in the defender's face), I knew that it was going to be a problem if I was the one doing the only scoring for our team. It would have helped too if the refs called a foul on my defender once in a while since he was hitting my arm on almost every three-pointer I took. Grrrr, I don't shoot line drives on purpose...it's probably because I got fouled. Our defense was pretty good for the most part, the help defense was solid but the other team was bigger and basically grabbed every rebound because of our inability to box out. It was a team-wide thing too, we were just not as quick to the ball as they were in the first half.

We got down by about 15 points at one point in the game, but we were able to fight back and we actually cut it down to about 4 or 6 points at one instance. We started to lock down on defense, forced some turnovers, rebounded, hit a couple of key shots and made a good run. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and ended up losing by 6 I think. Considering that we did not play our best game collectively and lost by only 6 points, that's not too bad. The way the game was called though would have maybe resulted in a different score at the end although I still have doubts about that.

Something I did not appreciate at all during the game was how some of the guys on the other team were talking smack. It usually was the people who have the least game to back it up that were talking the most and it made me enjoy it even more when I would hit a jumper or a three right in their face. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I could just nail a clutch shot right over them and shut their cocky mouth. The problem with games like that though is that since I am an expressive person and I wear my emotions on my sleeves, I don't always say the "correct" thing. I mean, if there's somebody cocky on their team or they are grabbing my jersey when they screen or there's a bad call, I'll usually say something (mutter it to myself) in a politically-incorrect manner. Apparenly I say it loud enough that other people could hear me but that's because I am harder on myself when I play than anybody else.

So I ended up with 17 points, a block or two, a couple of steals, a couple of assists...overall it was the best game I have played since I got to college. It was not flawless though because even though I scored a good amount of points I was not aggressive enough. I know I forced some shots instead of driving to the hoop and passing it to one of our big men. I could have worked harder for the ball at times, I could have driven more to the basket instead of settling for the long distance shots, I could have helped out rebounding more, I could have made better passes...little intricacies of the game that have to be done in order to consider it a great all-around game. I know I am getting better though and part of it is because I am working out this semester. My legs feel a lot stronger and durable during the games, my shot has improved and now I just have to put everything together: offense, defense, rebounding, passing, play-making, ball-handling, blocking, communicate...put everything together into one game so I could be happy :) So if I play like I am capable of playing and Jake does his thing as well and we get the ball to our big guys down by the basket we should be ok. It's a good start though, and even though there's no such thing as a "good" loss, it's not something to hang our heads on.

There is my great sport story for the week. It's still very fresh on my mind so I figure I should post it and then tomorrow I'll give a more well rounded update. I love basketball though, it is what makes the physical part of life simple for me. God keeps the spiritual stuff in order, basketball does the same for the physical aspect.

God, girls, and basketball (or whatever sport you are into)...life as it should be. It's simple, straight-to-the point, and purposeful. Although I am still debating on whether the girl aspect is simple. Track record and 6,000 years of human history suggest that it is not very simple but we shall see.

How I wished I saw this

2006-01-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

Wow! This was one of those times when I wished I had NBA TV so that I could have flipped on this game and seen this amazing performance. Ridiculous! Kobe scored almost DOUBLE what his teammates scored. I hope they show this game on ESPN Classic sometime soon so I could tape it and watch it over and over again...simply amazing.

Midnight ramblings

2006-01-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

It's after midnight and I'm sweaty, tired, sore...all wonderful qualities that I want to be feeling at this time of the night....

We had our first intramural game on Thursday night at 11pm. It's a late start to the game but there's no conflict of class or work schedules to worry about. We played pretty well, Jake had the hot hand from outside and we had our big guys down low playing big time. Our defense was pretty good and once we built the big lead early on we controlled the game. I played ok, my shots were touching every part of the rim except the bottom of it, but I played some pretty good defense. A couple of steals, a block, a handful of rebounds...I like doing the dirty work. I have to be able to make my shots go in though, it'll help fulfill the purpose of the game :) All in all, a good night and winning always makes the soreness feel a whole lot better. Oh and good refs too, they were pretty good for the most part.

Hmmmm, I took almost a three hour nap after dinner tonight because I was dead tired and even though I am tired from playing basketball, I am not tired in the sense of getting some sleep. I have also fallen behind on my class readings (which is notorious of me) and I feel like I can maybe do some Bible study and then do some school reading for the next couple of hours. Of course a shower would help and would make me feel better too...

Ahhhh, the midnight ramblings which lead to nowhere...How I have missed thee. Just as I left Beyer Hall I realized that I left my basketball at the gym. Of course I had just gotten out the door and with the time being close to midnight it meant that the doors were locked and I could not get back in. I hope they put it somewhere safe and I can reclaim it tomorrow morning when I go there for weightlifting tomorrow.

That reminds me I have to make a logbook of all the exercises we have done so far. I don't think I remember them all, but since I know everybody in the class is in the same predicament I'll get there early so we could all help each other out :)

Curiousity killed the cat

2006-01-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

*Disclaimer: Only those whom I've talked to very recently know the reasoning behind the subject and the following post. It is also a federal crime to interpret the title and the following post in a disingenuous manner.

There are a couple of people I have talked to about a certain situation and I was told how they would be too curious to let many days go by without wondering what was going on. So on Monday night after work I actually made the call and it was...passable, not great or good or bad but it is done and over with.

"If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but a..."

*Disclaimer: Although I do not approve of the lyrics used by Jay-Z, some of you might find it quite descriptive :)

Anyways, today was my very, very long school day which was supposed to start at 9:30am and ends at 9:30pm. So basically I'm in class all day and it was ok. My China & Cold War class is actually pretty interesting and I've been asking questions in class that the professor has actually appreciated. I got to play some basketball too, although I expected more from my play. I did actually read the chapters I needed to read for my Middle East Politics class (increased knowledge from the readings is close to zero).

I wanted to actually post something deep and reflective but I will save it for tomorrow since I am tired and need to get to bed so I could wake up and do some lifting tomorrow :)

Blunder Of The Day

2006-01-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

So I thought I had set my laptop alarm to sound off at 8:15am right before I went to bed. I forgot that during the weekends I disable the alarm and apparently forgot to enable it again for the school week. That means I slept through my 9:30am Journalism class and I broke my own promise of not skipping any classes this semester except for Holy Days. Well that lasted all but a week :)

A good way to end the week

2006-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

I didn't want to take so long between posts since I want to be able to update my blog more than I usually do. I've been in the blogging mood lately with a lot of things in my mind and I've contemplated either writing it down somewhere or putting it on here. I'll figure out what I want to do later once I'm able to put down in written form what is on my mind.

I'll start out with today and the beautiful Sabbath day that it was. It began of course with me sleeping in until 10:45am and allowing the radio to continue playing some tasteless pop song that has no place in the "good music column." I took a shower and then did my reading and praying, taking my sweet precious time the same way I did last Sabbath. I figure I could do that, leave Ames at about 12:40 and still get to Church in Des Moines with 5 minutes to spare :) I think I should wake up earlier though so I could have some more fellowship time before services but I'm liking the idea of sleeping in ;)

The services today were really inspiring, very much needed. The sermonette was a telecast titled, "The Lessons of History" by Mr. Ames with the focus being on the fact that the nations have yet to learn from the lessons of the past. Those who do not heed the warnings or lessons of the past are doomed to repeating the same mistakes. Of course being the history major that I am I very much appreciated the message since it is something that I have always believed in.

The sermon was titled, "The Power of Meditation" and it was given by Mr. Meredith. It was an AMAZING sermon, something that I had been thinking for a while. He also mentioned something that I was thinking about this exact morning too. I was thinking about how amazing it is that we are able to wake up in the morning and know what our purpose on this earth is and where we're headed. It's something that I hope we never take for granted, even in the darkest of moments. That's when we should reflect even more on the Truth and the understanding that God has given us and know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Hmmm, I shall now proceed to step out of my soapbox :)

The rest of the day went well. It was good catching up with a few people and joke around a bit as well. I came back and watched some of the NFL games and watched as the Patriots reign sadly came to an end. Turnovers killed them but they should be able to reload for next year. Jeremy called and we were able to catch up on each other's busy lives and talk for a good while. I was able to talk to a couple of people online and catch up with them for a good while. I also got some "Jon time" for about 10-15 minutes since he was busy with his Milwaukee crew and his cell phone was about to die too. All in all a pretty good night overall :)

I guess I would like to end this by mentioning one of the best pieces of Scripture in the Bible. I was reading it this morning and it just plainly makes sense to me and how things are SUPPOSED to be. I think it's just plain simple. We are told in the chapter how we should relate to each other as brethren (with love, with understanding, etc), exhorted to redeem the time, and then commanded on how to ask as spouses. It's a very simple formula: strong marriages lead to strong families, strong families lead to a strong and united Church, and a strong Church leads to a wonderful relationship with Christ and His bride. I know I have talked to some of you about this and you know how passionate and dead-set I am to live by this particular part of Scripture. It just makes plain sense but like with everything in life it seems that even if things are simple we find a way to make it difficult. Let's hope we can overcome with each passing day.

Anyways, that's it for tonight. Yay for a long weekend!

P.s. Oh Annette I'm really sorry about having you guys wake up earlier than you wanted you in KC. I was SUPPOSED to be there at the Ostroms at 10 but the night before didn't go exactly according to plan. Yep, slept in the car, froze most of the night, had a long, long talk...all in all, I could not get there until I finally did get there. Sorry about that, it's a funky story that I could tell later.

Teach me how to rewind time

2006-01-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

Wow.

That's the only way to describe my first day of my last semester of classes at the fine higher learning institution of Iowa State University. The day was long yet wonderful overall since it seems like everything is clicking for me :)

I start off the day at 7am along with Mike because we were going to shuffle our schedules around, add some classes, drop some classes, and figure out exactly how the semester was going to consist of. So after about an hour of adding, dropping, switching, writing down, erasing, concentrating too hard early in the morning...my schedule worked out perfectly!

I have 8 classes this semester, but it is not as bad as it sounds. I have 5 actual classes: U.S. Immigration History, China & the Cold War, Journalism & Mass Communication, Astronomy, and Politics of the Middle East. Pretty loaded schedule in and of itself but I needed 2 more history classes, a social science class (Journalism), a natural science class (Astronomy), and I'm taking another political science class just for the fun of it (and because Middle East politics should be thoroughly interesting).

The other 3 classes I have are: Weight lifting, soccer, and jazz dance. Yep, I decided to venture out and become culturized. Actually, I have upper division credits up the wazoo and I was able to take 3 easy classes that I really wanted to take. Weight lifting and soccer so I could get back into sports playing shape, and jazz dance so I could add something to the Hispanic repertoire (plus, my Mom would be proud :)) So things are looking on the up and up.

Today was a bit hectic though because of the whole early morning wake up/class scheduling scenario. After finally figuring out my schedule, I headed off to weight training, which lasted for only about 30 mins as the teacher was mentioning what we'd be doing, etc. I headed out to talk to my academic advisor to see if my schedule could allow me to graduate this May if I wanted to. She was all for it and liked my taking jazz dance idea :) Then I headed out to the hall where I was supposed to take Astronomy but found out that there was no recitation today and that lecture would be held tomorrow. Oh well, I went back to my room and decided to do my Bible Study and Prayer since I had plenty of time between classes (my Immigration History class doesn't start till 3pm. So I read, prayed, and then began my daily workout routine.

I recently started running as part of my "getting back in amazing shape" routine. I figured I came into college toned and in great shape and I should get out of school in the same condition. That is why I'm taking weight lifting (start doing weights again after a long layoff), soccer (great cardio workout, builds discipline, great team sport), and I'm running by myself as well. I ran about 3.5 miles in 30 minutes on Thursday, upped it 4 miles on Friday in 35 minutes, and I've been consistently doing 4 miles the past 2 days as well. I think I'm gonna be sticking at 4 miles for now. That I'm playing basketball too so I could get ready for intramurals in the next month. I think I might be pushing it a bit but it's what I have to do.

The only bad thing about my schedule is that on Tuesdays I have class at 9:30am (not bad at all) but because I added that Politics of the Middle East course it means that my last class ends at 9:30pm. The political science course is once a week for 3 hours. It will really test how loyal I can be to going to class and not giving in to the temptation of skipping out :)

Overall, not a bad first day. I end with a modification of Kanye West's "Golddigger" line: "18 credits, 18 credits and after 18 credits he finds out that he graduates!"

P.s. Annette, I'm incredibly jealous of you only taking 10 hours of class this semester. You've worked hard though so you deserve it. Don't slack off like I would :)

Best 3 weeks of my life

2006-01-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand (mostly by Rachael) and my own desire to update my lifeless blog I now write with the hope that it won't be deleted by a bad Internet connection. I actually tried to write this up on Thursday but as always with my dear school network connection it starts acting up at the worst opportune times :)

The usual customary winter trip to Puerto Rico was the best I've ever had. There was something about it that made this trip way more special than any before it. I think the fact that the whole family came together and we all hung out, laughed, and were together for the first time in about 6-7 years was also a key factor.

According to my last post I think I mentioned that I arrived in Puerto Rico with no problems whatsoever and my luggage actually arrived on time and everything. Beautiful stuff I tell you :) The first couple of days consisted of going to the chiropractor to get my routine checkup and try and fix the annoying pain I've had on my left hip since LYC '05. Also on the agenda was to get my dental checkup and cleaning of the pearly whites and check for cavities. Apparently I do a pretty good job and I've yet to have a cavity. Yay for good hygiene :)

The trip to Puerto Rico was shorter than usual because I wanted to make it to KC for the costume ball/dance/sports weekend. With the short amount of time in the Island of Enchantement I had to do as many things as possible in a 2 week span. The first Friday night I stayed up really late hoping to talk to one of my good friends from high school but alas it was midnight and I was heading off to bed. Although the phone rings and it's my friend Coral and we end up talking till about 5am. Good thing Church services are at 2pm in PR because I was working on fumes. It was a great all around conversation though. I know it's ridiculous to talk for that long but we covered a lot of subjects, although if I had known originally that it was going to be that long I probably would have cut it short sometime around 2 or 3am :P

Sabbath services were great in PR! I joke around that in PR I make sure that I pray longer and harder in the morning before heading out to services because the crazy driving involved by the population can cause some major wreckage. It's a short and beautiful drive to services in the town of Cidras (in the mountains). There's a lot of green, mountains, beautiful sights...everything that doesn't exist in the Midwest. Services are held in the elder's house and it was great to see the Church growing from the last time I was there. Most of the people are ex-WCG people that used to attend with us and it is comforting to see them again after so many years. The sermon was on being a good neighbor and the importance and meaning it entails. It used the examples of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (although the latter a bit of an sharp edge) and how they handled disputes with their neighbors.

That first Saturday night was supposed to be clubbin' night but it ended up being the night we walked all around old San Juan and played some pool. Coral was wearing high heels for some unknown reason and could not walk back to the car (the streets in old San Juan are Spaniard brick old school streets which take a toll on your feet). So I offered a piggy back ride back to the car, about 3 miles worth but since she's a lightweight it was possible without breaking my back, lol :P Overall, a tiring but fun night. The fun part is getting back into the house at 5am with all the gates and locks in the house without making too much noise that would wake up the parents.

The first Sunday meant sleeping in until 1pm and receiving a surprise phone call from my best buddy Jonny G! So Jon and I talk for about 2 hours and my Mom is like, "you guys talk a lot on the phone!" I proceed to explain to my mother that Jon and I give each other the weekly update on each other's life, after which we proceed to analyze what we just told each other, finalizing with the overanalyzation of what we just analyzed. It's a beautiful thing we do, although my Mom we're getting nowhere with the overanalyzations...I don't know, I think we've made some inroads :)

After about a 2 hour conversation I decide to lift weights for about an hour and then I wash and vaccuum my Mom and Dad's cars so that they can be clean, sparkly, and smelling nice for the rest of the trip. House chores to keep myself busy and push my weight around since I don't like to slack and be lazy when I'm at home. Listened to some tunes while washing the cars, had a blast, and then got ready to pick up a friend at the airport. After much delay and waiting, the person came in safe and sound.

The next 10 days in PR were an amazing combination of fun, family, excitement, joy, spontaneous activities...everything a trip home should be :) Apparently since none of us planned to have a family get-together my older brother and his family (with my Mom's precious granddaughter) decides to surprise Mom and pay a visit! Along with that was the fact that my uncle Joe decides to move back and we have the entire family (except my neocon Aunt, lol) together for some great times and food. The great thing about Puerto Rican families getting together after a long time apart is the fact that it makes for an awesome eating festival bonanza! :) Wonderful times and conversations!

For those who know me or know about my thoughts and opinions, you guys would say I'm pretty 'hawkish' or 'neocon' about many things. Some wonder where does it all come from? Can someone be that crazy? I have tried to explain things before but I conclude the explanations by saying that you would have to meet my family. A week or ten days with the crew would provide enough evidence as to why the Martinez Moran clan is full of conservatism...I would go as far to say that my Grandma, Mom, and my Aunt are the founding members of conservatism :)

That quite a digression. Anyways, if any of you are willing to step out on a limb and do something completely spontaneous then you should head out to Puerto Rico sometime. My house is pretty big, there's always something different to do every day and night. I can guarantee great food, great times, great conversation but I can't promise you'll get any sleep. It seems like I never get any sleep when I'm back home but that's exactly how I like it I guess. There's not a whole lot of time to do everything so I always try to fit in as much as possible and it renders me as a very tired person :)

After a wonderful 2 weeks in PR, I proceeded to pack my things and head out for another grueling semester of school. It's my last semester so I feel a bit overwhelmed, nervous, and anxious about what the next phase of my life is. But before the torture of another academic semester, the KC weekend was first and it lived up to the hype.

So I got to the Bible Study with about 2 hours to spare so I proceeded to nap in my car :) I went in about an hour before it was supposed to start so I got to see all the wonderful people come in as the place soon became packed to full capacity. I have to say that it was great seeing everybody coming together for a joyous occassion. I had the feeling that it was a mini-Feast. Actually it felt like a Feast but shortened to a weekend. The Bible Study was wonderfully done by Mr. Millich; it centered on Proverbs and also included one of the most hilarious Scriptures that had Jon, Jeremy, Emily, and me laughing it up (I think Annette realized why we were laughing and I saw her smiling as well).

The Scripture we were all laughing at was found in Ezekiel 16:44, "Indeed everyone who quotes proverbs will use this proverb against you: 'Like mother, like daughter'!" If any of you know of my previous relationship and some of the problems surrounding it, you would know why we were all laughing. My mom always said you have to laugh so you don't cry. That's what I've learned in the past 6 months, laugh about it because I shouldn't waste time in dwelling on the negatives of it. Move on, and let the past be the past. Learn from it, don't do it again, apply what was right, don't repeat what was wrong.

Hmmm, I should seriously consider being a professor. It seems like I am able to go on tangents as they willingly and willfully do during lecture. Back to the KC weekend though. I was glad to see people I hadn't seen in so long such, especially people like Rachael whom I hadn't seen in more than 2 and a half years!! The conversations were pretty awesome as well. I was able to talk to Rachael, Ginger, Mariah, Courtney, Desiree, Gina M, Kristen about a lot of things. Wide range of topics and I got some insight on life, women, relationships, etc from talking to all these people. Of course the guy talk with Jonny G, Juan, Jason was awesome as well.

Sabbath services in KC were pretty awesome! I was in the overflow with about 10 other people. Quite fun if I do say so myself :) When the children's choir started singing something to the tune of, "if you're happy and you know it..." I led the pack in the overflow room in stomping the foot, clapping hands, doing a nerrdy dance move :) Yep, acting my age during services.

The dance was an ok one. I don't know if it was just me but I just was not feeling it on Saturday night. I went as Alvin from chipmunks with Jon and Jeremy as Simon and Theodore respectively. The music selection was great though, a lot of songs that I hadn't heard yet being played at a Church dance. Apparently someone is hearing my advice about there being other kinds of music other than country that can be played at a church dance (yay for playing Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together"!) As Josh and Desiree have mentioned in their respective blogs, people left in groups to two main locations. I went to the Wilson's where I proceeded to drink a lot of water and play pool. I made some of my best pool shots in a while but I scratched on the 8-ball...good shots gone to waste :( Oh well, Jon and I decided to head out with Evan, Chris, Kyle, and Peder and play some poker. Here here for 2am poker and going to bed at 4am!

Sunday was an awesome day in KC! Sports day was awesome and I apologize to my team for getting there late. I blame my driver Jon for thinking that he could get anywhere on time, lol. Josh gave the rundown on how the games went. We had a pretty good team, once we warmed up we made our shots and developed some good chemistry. I wish we could have played the Moluf team though, I was up to the challenge :) After about 3 hours of basketball, I decided to play frisbee for a bit and experience massive leg cramps that I loosened up by running more :) Overall, sports day was the best Church sports day I've ever experienced. It was the perfect balance of competitive fire and 'churchy' aspect that I never saw in sports before. It was great!

Sunday night a bunch of us stayed around and went to Fox & Hound...an pretty neat bar & billiards place. Pretty nice looking place and it wasn't smokey, only in a certain area. They had the best Long Island's Ice Tea I've ever had, I highly recommend the place. The pool was great but it was even better to have meaningful conversation with Mariah, Courtney, and Sophia...although the latter was almost hustling me at pool until I made the best shot of my life and then proceeded to drink the rest of my Long Island's :)

After pool, we all went to Lanna and Richard's place (they live right across the street) and had some more convo and were able to partake of Jonny Scarboroughs musical talent! The guy is amazing and it provided a great attitude to the environment and the whole night. Pretty much an amazing weekend all around.

I think this is getting a bit long so I will sum up the rest of the weekend. On Monday I took Kristen to the airport so she could catch her flight. Quite an interesting day, full of long lines, delays, and great conversation in between. After dropping her off I proceeded to go back to the Routh's home and get all my stuff and Jon and I left to spend the next couple of nights at the Millich's. It was great hanging out with Tiffani, Daral, and Heather...they make for some awesome conversation. We watched the Florida State-Penn State game and the madness of its triple overtime/botched kicking festival. Great stuff. Jon, Mike Diekmeier, Missy, and I left on Wednesday afternoon and headed up north. I got to school at about 6pm and proceeded to order pizza and get ready for the ultra-hyped championship game between Texas and USC! Awesome game, great athletes, excitement, changing leads, game changing plays...everything that made for one of the greatest championship games in college football history.

I think that's about it for now...I've got some good blogging material on the way but I go now to run and play ball for a while. Take care all and to those who start school again, good luck.

P.s. Oh and congrats Annette, glad to have you in the family :)

Back Home

2005-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

It's great to be back home!!! The traveling was pleasant, there were no delays and my luggage got here with no problems! Yeah, score one for the Puerto Rican ;)

I got to KC at about 8:30 last night and it wasn't too bad of a drive, except that I kept falling asleep and wrecked about 10 times. Yeah, the 6 hours of sleep along in 3 days finally caught up to me. I got to the hotel fine and then proceeded to order 2 large Papa John's pizzas because I hadn't eaten anything all day. The guy took an hour to bring the pizza and I am proud to say I almost ate 2 large pizzas by myself, lol. Yeah pretty crazy, along with the Fresh Prince all night marathon on Nick at Nite...beautiful stuff I tell you.

So my flights went well, even my brief stop in O'Hare airport. I assume they finished all the construction in the airport because it was looking quite spiffy. I slept through most of the flight from Chicago to PR, grabbed a blanket so I wouldn't freeze to death. The awesome part is getting to Puerto Rico, grabbing my luggage, coming out and getting picked up by my Mom and brother.

We headed off to Grandma's house to eat some good ol' rice and beans with some good beef and fried plantains. Yummy stuff! Grandma's still going strong and telling me she'll beat me up if I misbehave...gotta love Grandma (she's almost 80 now but she still packs quite a punch, lol!). Then Mom, Carlos, and I headed home and said hi to Dad and start unpacking and all that jazz. I called Mario because he told me that as soon as my feet touch the house's floor I had to call him. So I called and he came over so we could go and play pool somewhere. I called Coral too cause she wanted to come over and say hi but no one answered the phone. Oh well, Mario and I made it a great night! I played one good game, and one mediocre one but I lost both but it was all good. One of our friends from high school came by too so it was fun catching up and not worrying about school, tests, finals, grades and all things associated with Satan...I mean, education ;) (Although I feel your pain Annette)

It was a great first night back home. It's almost 1am so I'm going to shower (gotta love the smell of pool playing bars, lol), get some sleep because I have a date with the chiropractor tomorrow (yay!), and a wonderful afternoon date with the dentist :)

Thanks all of you guys for the upbeat messages and all that support while going through the craziness of finals. I'll see most of you in KC, and some I'll be seeing sooner than that :) I hope to post some pictures as the days go by. Oh and did I mention that a Saturday night is a terrible thing to waste, lol :) Yeah baby, party city :P

Done, done, and on to the next one :)

2005-12-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

It's over folks!!! I got my paper done this morning at about 11am! 15 pages in total, a sorta coherent message throughout. I took my last final at 2 and got done with it in about 25 mins so it's all good baby! I'm just happy to be done with everything. Thank you for bearing with me through all this and for the support. The neocons really appreciated it ;)

Oh and Annette, I only napped for about 15-30 minutes while writing my paper. Actually I passed out while typing but I didn't head off to bed at least :P See you all in KC!

Slowly moving along...

2005-12-14T02:20:00.000-08:00

I've discovered that re-writing/researching/proofreading/ a 14-17 paper is harder than I thought it would be. Actually it's not an impossible task, it is just harder to accomplish when I had all the other school stuff (something minor like final tests) to deal with, along with making sure I pack what I need for PR (and forget to pack what I don't need).

I think I've packed everything I needed: swim trunks (yeah baby!), shorts, polos, nice slacks for church (no ties in PR! woo hoo!), socks, underwear and the bear necessities. Then again, I have to make sure I take some extra winter clothes to leave in the car so that when I get back for the KC weekend I won't be freezing. I got the map to get to the hotel, passport, ticket confirmation, cd's, Fresh Prince DVD's...everything needed for a plane ride :)

I'm off now because I have 9 pages down and 5 more to go...although I have to say that I think I'll be putting more footnotes on the rest of the paper ;) Oh and I only fell asleep while typing for like 15 minutes so I think I'm good for the rest of the n....oh yeah, it's morning already, bleh!

4 down, 1 to go...and a research paper

2005-12-13T17:48:00.000-08:00

What a rollercoaster I tell you, and the sad thing is that I still have one more marathon night of writing/researching/studying. I think I answered my Military History questions well enough to keep my grades solid in that class. Of course I cramped my study time by sleeping for another three hours this morning that killed how much I could study for Politics and Society final. Our prof had given us review sheets with a bunch of questions and I just basically looked for the answers to the questions and hoped that she would ask the same thing but in multiple choice. Yeah it's quite a gamble to take but I've never been one to study a lot if I've been to lecture every time since the Feast and I know what we've been covering.

The final wasn't too bad. I know I did a lot better than I did on the last test for that class but I don't think I did well enough to push my grade into an A. I think I needed to pull off a 96 or something close to perfection to get my grade up. Now I focus on the massive research paper that is about 1/5 done. And I have to take my last final tomorrow too...*feeling overwhelmed*

The good thing is that I'm doing laundry too, and I have to pack so that once I take my last final I can just drive off like a free man to KC. Yeah, I hadn't really done laundry since Feast (I did colors like 3 weeks ago though, and yeah I have a ton of clothes). I'm not one to bring nasty, dirty, gross clothes back home so that my Mom could do it. My brother did that last year and his suitcase was stinking pretty bad. I think my Mom and I gave him an earful about :P

Ok well I'm hoping that I really, really won't fall asleep while writing my paper. I can't afford sleeping the measly 3 hours I've been getting the past two mornings. Here's for another long, long night of schoolwork.

It's 2am do you know where your bed is?

2005-12-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

Nice to see some of the encouragement guys, way to go! :) If it were any other semester than this one I think I would be doing awesome. It's the fact that I'm taking a third history class that basically killed what decent GPA I had up to this point.

Oh yeah so I skipped work for the second night in a row. I needed to write my military history test and I couldn't have possibly done it while coming back at 12ish in the morning. Yeah, I probably should have called or something but I sorta fell asleep on my chair for like an hour and I've been reading/marking/typing away ever since. Except for the occassional let me surf for a bit, it won't be too long I'll get right back on my paper. Yeah right, that never works out that way.

Anybody want to lend a hand in explaining if there is an American way of war? Although by reading the title of this blog I know where you guys are. And the torture continues...

2 down, 3 to go...oh and a research paper

2005-12-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

Well I took care of my History of England take home final that was due today at noon, which was followed by the massacre/mass suicide/GPA killing, I mean, final exam from History of Mexico at noon as well. Yep, I think I got handled by the Mexico final but I think so did everybody else but I already know that I messed on one of the ID's and they were only worth 20 points each. No problem because the long essay was worth 150 points, along with the short essay being 50 points and 5 ID's worth 20 each. Yeah, I want to just bury myself right now....I knew I shouldn't have slept those 3 hours this morning. It completely cramped my study time. Blah!

On the good news I get to write up a take home for my military history class due at noon tomorrow, along with studying for my Politics and Society test that I'll take tomorrow at 4:30. And the great news about this is that I work tonight from 7-midnight which will cramp my study/writing time for both tests.

If that wasn't bad enough I have to find time to do laundry, pack, shower, and eat too. Oh and I have my 14-17 page research paper for my Mexican history class due Friday, but since I'm flying out Thursday that means I need to have it done by Wednesday. Oh and I have a final to take for International Security on Wednesday afternoon as well. Yes folks, it doesn't get any better than this. So why am I blogging instead of getting it done?

Part of the soundtrack of my life...

2005-12-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

Chester Bennington - "Let Down"

And the tears fall like rain
Down my face again
Oh the words you wouldn't say
And the games you played
With my unfoolish heart
Oh I should have known this from the start

Oh the winter and spring
Going in hand in hand
Just like my love and pain
How the thought of you cuts deep within the vein
Oh this brand new skin stretched across scarred terrain

I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my life again
Don't want to be led down the same old road
So I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my lies again
Don't want to be led down the same old road

All those years down the drain
Love was not enough when you want everything
What I gave to you and now the end must start
Oh I should have listened to my heart

'Cause I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my life again
Don't want to be led down the same old road
So I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my lies again
Don't want to be led down the same old road

Oh...

I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my life again
Don't want to be led down the same old road
So I don't want to be let down
I don't want to live my lies again
Don't want to be led down the same old road

I know, I know, I've been neglecting you guys

2005-12-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

I'm basically crammed for time, stressed about school ending, finals, papers to write, avoiding baggy eyes, try to sleep in order to function, and here I am trying to resurrect the blog after neglecting it for so long. Shows where my priorites are huh?
Things have been pretty hectic the past couple of weeks. If you read Jon's blog then you'll know where I was during Thanksgiving week. It basically sums up how my year went: traveling, traveling, traveling. Now I'm trying to end the semester on a good note and make sure I pass my classes so I can graduate with no problems in May or August. I've got internship applications to do (already been accepted to one), job applications to fill out, and all that fun grown up stuff that I guess I should be getting used to.
It doesn't help that some computer geek creates something as addictive as facebook.com or music downloading programs. It's been quite the challenge to break the lazy habits of college (which actually began my senior year of high school). I have to make sure that I stay in the right path of life in spiritual terms. Too often I get bogged down and distracted by the everyday issues of life and ignore the importance of reading, praying, meditating. The thing is that I know better than that and yet I let the human nature do the things I disapprove of. I hate and abhore that part, because I feel like I'm taking God's grace for granted. I know God is all loving, forgiving, and merciful but I don't want to be all-protestantish and abuse that mercy and grace because I DO know better. Then again, I read Romans 7 over and over again and understand how strong that battle is, I just wish I could end up on the winning side close to most of the time.
Well this will have to do for now since I've got so much to do and I shouldn't be fooling around with this. Good news that by this time next week I'll be in KC chillin' at the hotel, enjoying the open bar (oh yeah!), toasting to the fact that the semester is over, and flying to PR to spend two weeks with family and friends! I know there's some stuff I was going to post some stuff about immigration, the Iraq war, and the other interesting stuff I study. It's forthcoming though and I'll post it and you guys can opiniate all you want.

I am all you ever wanted...

2005-11-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

It's been a week or so since I blogged and even though I should be doing some schoolwork I felt compelled to give an update. School has been horrendous, atrocious, complicated, and difficult to understand, but I'm trying to make some progress on some of the stuff I missed on. Classes have been ok, nothing special. My performance has been average at best, I started off with a bang but that week and a half at the Feast really put me back and I guess at a disadvantage when I got back. I took two tests, one for International Security and another one for Politics and Society, and let's just say that when half the questions on both tests are regarding lecture and what each professor said I didn't have much chance to answer them correctly. Oh well, I'm still graduating in May so that's what I'm focused on, plus I can always do well during finals and next semester as well.
I booked my trip to my island of Puerto Rico the island of enchantment this past weekend and I am pumped! I am actually able to go back for about 15 days and fly back to KC in time for the Church weekend there for New Year's Eve. I'm hoping that it does occur because I planned my trip around it. I fly out from KC on December 15th (Thursday) and have already talked to my profs about taking the Friday finals earlier in the week, which will my study time. Oh well, I can't wait to have the time with my family, friends, the beach, the tropical rain forest, the homemade food, the PR congregation, the warm weather...it's always a blast. Plus, I'll be able to talk to my parents about some stuff and get their input on life's questions and get their advice. I've been pretty good at listening to my parents most of the time and I'm hoping I do this time around too.
It was a tough last for me in a lot of ways. My Grandfather from my Dad's side had not been feeling well since he suffered a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. He was in his 90's and was probably the strongest and smartest man I would ever come across in life. I hadn't seen him since I graduated from high school so it has been a while. My Dad has been taking it pretty hard as expected, but the comforting thing is that the next time we see him the world will be a better place and he will have a chance to know the Truth. Moments like what these make school and money issues seem so unimportant, and they are because in the grand scheme of things the material stuff does not matter.
There's also been things that have come up that have dampened my spirits a bit as well. I'm trying not to get discouraged because I do know better and I know that God will see me through. I was reading my best buddy Jon's blog and there's so much I can identify with. So many life changing/important decisions to make, so many variables and dependents which are still being defined and experimented on. I'm hoping I can make the RIGHT decision, mold and shape my future and do well, but I have no idea what is in store. In any case, I will just keep trying my hardest at what I do and then maybe then it will be good enough...

Score one for a conservative

2005-11-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Today's been a pretty good day, I was a little bit anxious and nervous about a lot of things but it has shaped up to be a good one. I talked to my advisor and I am officially graduating next semester...freaky/scary/nervous thought come to think about it.
The good news is that I got my grade back from the "Should Immigration Be Restricted" debate and much to my surprise I got an A on it! I was shocked, surprised, happy, and thankful about the grade I got on it. I don't think I could have gotten a solid A on it but I got 49/50 on it and I was stoked! It pumped me up for sure because I don't think I did that good of a job on it but the professor liked it and the other students had positive comments on the debate. The prof staples her assessment of the debate along with the other students' comments and I came away impressed and humbled by what they said. They actually liked it! That's the surprising part of it but I will definitely take it ;)
I was actually worried about my grades slipping because it's been tough this semester. So much to do with so little time and my classes are basically the academic death penalty. I'm trying to survive though but it didn't help that I did awesome last semester and set the bar too high for myself, lol. I've been thinking that the way I ended last semester was the way I should have ended my college career but alas, I still had a year left. Oh well, I guess I'll keep chugging along with this...
I feel the need to blog about something relevant and important to me but I can't find the time. I have a take home test to write up by noon tomorrow for a class that I was not able to attend for 2 weeks, I have a 5 page preliminary research assignment to present about why I'm researching the British Empire due on Thursday, and I've got a test to make up for my Politics and Society class on Thursday as well. I can't wait for the weekend to come...

Back To Reality

2005-10-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

Although when you look at it, this world that we come back to is nothing like the realness of the world we will help usher in and inherit at Christ's coming. It's always sad and depressing to come back after Feast, but for some reason it hit me harder than in previous years.
The Feast was in many areas my best Feast yet, but at the same time I hindered myself from enjoying it to the fullest. I came away humbled and somber from the Feast, wanting to improve in so many areas. I guess my eyes were opened this Feast to certain things and even though I learned some lessons the hard way I'm glad I learned them. The messages were awesome and there's plenty of great material in them that are going to help in the coming year.
I'm looking forward to this coming year. There is a lot of anxiousness and nervousness in regards as to what I'm going to do after school, where I am going to live, afford the bills, etc. At the same time I have a bad case of senioritis because I'm just taking it easy in terms of school, classes, tests. Let's see how it goes. I guess I fell into that mood when I went to the Pol S office to pick up my degree audit and the secretary told me, "you're a graduating senior" and handed me a pink audit. So basically 4 years of college has come down to getting handed the pink audit meaning I will be graduating! Oh yeah, you know how I do!

So much to do, so little time

2005-10-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to have updated a couple of days ago but I have way too much to do and not enough time to get it all done. Atonement was very good for me here in Iowa, we had the new ministerial trainee Mr. Lovelady and his wife and kids come up to the middle of nowhere Iowa :)

It was funny to hear some of the kids say, "Only (insert here) hours until sunset!" I remember those days when I was counting down the time until I could finally chug about a gallon of water and then break the fast with our usual post-Atonement pizza. Hey Annette, it's great to see that I'm not the only one with the pizza tradition as a way to end Atonement :)

So after Church one of the Lovelady kids asked me if I had ever seen a liger. I cracked up laughing and asked him if he had seen Napoleon Dynamite because it is the only thing that you can reference that type of thing. He was about 7-8 years old and answered no but I still laughed because of the liger comment :) He also showed me some of his drawings and one of them was a bow (which I mistook for a taco :P) so I'm thinking somebody has to have referenced Napoleon to him because of the liger and bow comments. Too coincidental I tell ya!

So I think I am packed for the Feast. I started at about 9pm or something like that last night and I was talking to Jeremy in the middle of doing so. Since my plans to visit KC on Atonement went kapoot I had to call someone in the area to see if I could crash there on Friday night since I really want to get out of Iowa :) So at about 11pm I call Tiffani Millich and asked if it was possible for me to stay Friday night and Saturday night. She asked her parents and they said yes for Friday but since they're leaving Saturday night I couldn't. I have a place to stay Friday and I'm going to search online for a nice little hotel for me to stay in Saturday where I can have a miniturized bar :) Hey, it's the Feast I have to do something nice for myself. It'll actually be the first time being along in a hotel, oh well I'll probably catch up on some badly needed sleep :)

It's 4:15am and I still haven't gone to bed because I have scholarship essays to start and finish so I could send it in the mail tomorrow and I have to turn in something for my Pol S class as well because I forgot to turn it in on Tuesday. Procrastination is a killer I tell you. Actually I was planning on staying up late anyways because I was going to burn a couple of CD's since I was lacking on burning my extensive collection of music into road trip CDs. I've got 3 made so far: 2 acoustic cds, and one basically consisting of the best Usher and Frankie J songs. I want to make a reggaeton one, and hopefully a couple more acoustic ones while typing up my essay.

I think Jeremy said it best when I talked to him tonight. "You know Martin, we wait all year for the Feast and we make these awesome plans, but we wait until the last minute to pack and get everything done." I couldn't agree more :)

I hope everybody has a safe trip to and from the Feast (it's part of the awesomeness of the FOT) and most importantly, that you all have a wonderful and fruitful 2005 Feast of Tabernacle! And remember, keep it kosher ;)

It's inching closer...

2005-10-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Feast is continually coming closer to its beginning and my trip to KC is happening even sooner. Even though Will Smith once said that "A Saturday night is a terrible thing to waste", here I am in my dorm room just looking for something to do. It's not like I have nothing to do either. I have a couple of essays for a Hispanic Scholarship Fund application that I need to mail before I leave for KC, I have a debate to prepare for on Tuesday, and there's also something called packing for the Feast. All of these are time consuming and I really have no idea where to start.
I sent most of my dress clothes to the dry cleaners on Friday. 13 dress shirts in all, 3 suit jackets, 5 dress pants. Let's just say that it is an expensive habit to take the dress clothes to get dry cleaned, pressed and ironed. I actually like to iron, I believe it is one of the ways to be productive while listening to some music, watching a game, a movie and you get a lot done. The thing is that after L4T, camp, and a couple of weddings my clothes needed the dry cleaners. I had a couple of coupons though so it's all good.
We had a good Sabbath here in Des Moines. We got to hear Mr. Meredith's "Endure With Faith" and it was a really good one. He talked about how things are speeding up (the 9/11 terrorists attacks, Katrina hurricane, and all the other things, etc) but I think he made an incredible point of what WE are supposed to be doing as individuals. Are WE making God and Christ the first priority in our lives? Are WE willing to pick up our cross and follow Him the entire way? It made an impact I tell you, one of those "messages that you need to hear at a certain time so as to not forget what your purpose in the Church is." It was good to hear and it was good to see everybody one last time before leaving for Atonement and the Feast.
I'm excited to say the least, I've even got some extra money (thanks to my incredible parents :)) Now the key is to make sure I invest in it wisely (I think the Fresh Prince DVDs and the Star Wars Clone Wars DVDs are included in that wise decision, lol).
I was going to post something about the Iraq War and what your opinions were on it but I think I'll leave that for later :)

Not the greatest day but...

2005-10-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

Today was just one of those days that could have been either really awesome or just poopy. The reason I say that is because I had a test for my History of Mexico class and it was not one of the most confident test-taking experiences I've had since starting college. See I took a class with the same professor last semester and it was Tuesdays and Thursdays for 1 hour and 20 minutes. That meant that when I took his essay tests I had plenty of time to write up a pretty good essay and not leave gaping holes in the arguments because of time constraints. This semester though, his class is MWF, meaning that it is only 50 minutes in length. So today when I took his test I knew as I was writing the essay which was 2/3 of the test that I was leaving huge gaping holes in my answer but since there was so much to write I couldn't get to everything like I wanted it to. I think I did well enough to pass but not as well as I've always done in his classes. Oh well, I guess I'll see how I did next week.
Today was the beginning of the flag football single elimination playoffs and I was pretty pumped about it. My shoulder was healed up, my lower back (which has been killin' me since camp) wasn't hurting too bad so I felt pretty good about playing well. The weather was completely nasty today, it had rained, it was cold (50's compared to high 70's yesterday), and very windy too (up to 35mph winds). In a sense, it was perfect normal football weather but horrendous flag football conditions. Our defense, which had been stout and dominating, sputtered and we allowed too many big plays. Guys were wide open down the field, blown coverage but it wasn't all our fault since none of us had any cleats and it was slippery. The other team's quarterback had cleats and ran around amock and we had no way of stopping him because he could make cuts on the field and we couldn't.
The other team scored first and made a 2 point conversion and we proceeded to score and not convert the 2 pointer. I think we stopped them on defense and then I got to quarterback and it was pretty fun...in the beginning. I got some nice runs for first downs, a couple short passes, and then I finally got a nice deep ball to our deep threat and we scored a touchdown. Then we ran a good ol' fashioned Nebraska option play on the 2 point conversion and I pitched it to Mike and he got in there. I think we led for all of like 5 minutes because our defense just sucked. It didn't help that in the second half I threw stupid interceptions because once again I try to do way too much with the football. And I did not like the fact that the other team would complain about something to the refs and then a flag would be thrown to satisfy their complaints. Stupid refs I tell you, cracking because the other team was complaining when we did get some good plays going. I was really hoping we could win so that we would play tomorrow and keep going but it just didn't happen for us. Oh well, I guess I'll have to start playing basketball again a couple of times during the week so that I get my good workout in.
So that's basically the rundown on the fake unimportant things in life. For a variety of reasons I've been feeling frustrated with myself, what I am trying to accomplish and what I want to be. I have an idea of what I want to do after I'm done with school, I'm one of the best at what I do and I think I can make an impact. No, I'm not trying to change the world or anything like that but I know that whatever I do end up doing I'm going to excel in it. Not because I'm cocky or because I have more talent but because I will work hard and God rewards those who work hard and put in the effort and also lean on Him. I'm just one of those people who overanalyze, think too much and that leads to worrying.
I've been told running is the cure for everything, maybe I should take up running because everything else I've tried hasn't worked, hehehe. I really should take up something though to take my thoughts away. Maybe a vacation to PR would do well, or some hanging out with my friends...ahhh, that's where the Feast would come in handy :) The great thing is that I'm leaving for Kansas City next Thursday!!!

What I am feeling at the moment...

2005-10-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

Creed - "My Own Prison"

A court is in session, a verdict is in
No appeal on the docket today
Just my own sin
The walls are cold and pale
The cage made of steel
Screams fill the room
Alone I drop and kneel
Silence now the sound
My breath the only motion around
Demons cluttering around
My face showing no emotion
Shackled by my sentence
Expecting no return
Here there is no penance
My skin begins to burn

(And I said oh) So I held my head up high
Hiding hate that burns inside
Which only fuels their selfish pride
(And I said oh) We're all held captive
Out from the sun
A sun that shines on only some
We the meek are all in one

I hear a thunder in the distance
See a vision of a cross
I feel the pain that was given
On that sad day of loss
A lion roars in the darkness
Only he holds the key
A light to free me from my burden
And grant me life eternally

Should have been dead
On a Sunday morning
Banging my head
No time for mourning
Ain't got no time

(And I said oh) So I held my head up high
Hiding hate that burns inside
Which only fuels their selfish pride
(And I said oh) We're all held captive
Out from the sun
A sun that shines on only some
We the meek are all in one

I cry out to God
Seeking only his decision
Gabriel stands and confirms
I've created my own prison
I cry out to God
Seeking only his decision
Gabriel stands and confirms
I've created my own prison

(And I said oh) So I held my head up high
Hiding hate that burns inside
Which only fuels their selfish pride
(And I said oh) We're all held captive
Out from the sun
A sun that shines on only some
We the meek are all in one

(And I said oh) So I held my head up high
Hiding hate that burns inside
Which only fuels their selfish pride
(And I said oh) We're all held captive
Out from the sun
A sun that shines on only some
We the meek are all in one

Should've been dead on a Sunday morning
banging my head
No time for mourning
Ain't got no time

You hear that? Sounds like the Calvary's coming :)

2005-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's almost sunset and that means it is about time to start observing the Feast of Trumpets. "That sounds like a lot of fun" as my British professor said when I was explaining to him why I would not be able to attend classes tomorrow. I don't think I could have described it any better myself :)
I received my Military History test that I turned in on Wednesday and I have to say that a 90 is not a bad way to start off in that class. Things seem to be afloat this semester so far, and I hope that is able to continue when I come back from the Feast and am not able to remember ANYTHING that I learned in class. I think I would have taken 4 tests out of 5 classes and if I am able to do well on Wednesday's test (Mexican History since Independence) then I would have an A in every test before taking off for the Ozarks. Not too shabby and since I've set the bar high for myself I hope I do not fall flat on my face.
My shoulder seems to be healed up after being sore since our first intramural football game, meaning I am locked and loaded to play well. It's down to one game elimination so if we win Wednesday then our next game is Thursday. First things first though and hopefully we'll do our best :)
I am really glad that the Feast of Tabernacles is only 2 weeks away. It seems like it's taken longer for this year's Feast to roll around and I know it's going to be a blur when it actually happens because it goes by so quickly. I had been waking up to Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" because I knew that once October hit, fall festival season! Oh yeah! It will be my first Feast since being baptized so I'm looking forward to that and maybe this is finally the year I put the right balance in terms of prayer, Bible Study, fellowshipping, sleeping, etc. while at the Feast. I think Gary made a great post about this a while ago, I don't think I commented on it but I think he was dead-on with some of his assessments. This is going to be an interesting Feast in a lot of ways, at least because of the people I know going to the Ozarks. There might be drama, there might not be (I hope for the latter) and there are some interesting subplots too. Oh boy, I'm just hoping all of that can be put aside and the focus can be on the right things :)
And just as important (at least to me, lol) is the fact that the New York Yankees became AL East Champions again in what can probably be described as their toughest year in the "Joe Torre Era." They showed their mettle and hopefully it will make for a long, playoff run including extracting revenge on the Boston Red Sox, reaching and winning the World Series. That would put the icing on the cake on a very hard-fought season and I would not mind celebrating like I did from 1996-2000 :) (And I get to check out baseball scores on my cell phone, yay!)
Other than the usual school/reading/work/feeling of being overwhelmed there hasn't been much going on. It's going I guess, I've been feeling a bit down for whatever reason but nothing major I don't think.
I hope you guys have a wonderful Feast of Trumpets and remember the incredible meaning it has, thus the purpose behind my subject line :)

Up in the mornin' girl and the DJ playin' that song now watcha gonna do?

2005-09-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up all by myself without the help of my alarm. The only problem with that is the fact that I set my alarm up for 7:30 and I woke up at 9:15. My Int'l Security class starts at 9 so I had to put the pedal to the metal, put some jeans on (it's been chilly), skip brushing my teeth, and walk about 12 minutes across campus. I would have skipped the class entirely but since attendance is required and I'm already missing 3-4 classes while at the Feast I figured I should at least go and sign in :)

On a positive note, our flag football game was rescheduled to this next Wednesday. It had been originally set for Tuesday but guess what. It's the Feast of Trumpets and Mike and I weren't going to be able to play plus we had 1 or 2 other guys who had class or work for the day the game was sceduled. So Jerad (team captain) emailed the Intramural Director and contacted the team we are playing against and there was one field open on Wednesday at 5:30 so we all get to play and strut our stuff :) I'm happy about that because I really wanted to play and see if we can turn things around with our offense. We played some two hand touch football at the Rec the other night and I got to be quarterback for a bit and I think I've got my throws practiced enough to where I want them. I just have to learn to take out all my nervous energy at the beginning of the game and play with the poise and calmness that I play with after the opening jitters are gone.

I think I've found what awesome Feast gifts I'm going to get for myself. I've been surfing online and I can't wait for Feast to come and all that great jazz. Well, I'm off to class because I intend to make it to Military History on time and NOT fall asleep during lecture. I'll write more later :)

Who's your daddy?

2005-09-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today has been a pretty good day so far. I don't remember if I said in my previous post or not what I got on my Int'l Security test but I got a spiffy 98. Good thing for having the questions on WebCT and helping out an overwhelmed college student :) I got the score back from my Politics and Society test that I took on Thursday in which I felt that I completely bombed. The scores were up today on the board outside the classroom with our ID numbers next to the score and I couldn't believe what I got. I seriously felt that I was going to fail that test because of all the guessing I did due to the lack of reading every detail of the material covered in class. Much to my surprise I got an 84 and I was pretty happy about that, but the kicker was the little asterisk at the bottom of the page saying: *Add 6 points to your score*

So if I do my math correctly that would be 84+6=90=A :) Yay!!! I got an A on a horrendous test and I've got to thank the Man upstairs, the people who did really horribly on the test, and the people who didn't take the test at all. My military history prof says that you should always thank the people who never show up for class or the tests because since they take the F then that means our scores get bumped :) It's beautiful I tell you, beautiful.

I've talked to two of my professors about the fall Holy Days and so far they seem cool with it. I got my debate schedule changed because of Atonement, although I've got to do it by myself but I think I'll be ok. The cute Polish girl on the other side of the argument though said that "we're going to kill you..." :) As long as she keeps lookin' cute then that's all right by me ;) Ok, I don't know who will get this reference but if you know your tennis then you will. The Polish girl has a Sharapova look to her...not bad if I say so myself :)

I've got a take home test that is due tomorrow for American Military history. It shouldn't be too bad if I actually start working on it right now. I only have to answer 3 of the questions in essay form so it's not excruciating plus I talked to him last week and he doesn't want a term paper-like essay.

I'm torn though between doing that paper right now and working out and watching Gilmore Girls tonight. I'm also wanting to get paid already because finances are tight. The FBI is among the agencies coming tomorrow and they're always in the need for linguists so I'm going to read some more from their site so that when I talk to them I'll be able to ask some intelligent questions :) Seems like a plan then!

A Week In Review...

2005-09-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ok so I should really try to update my blog more than just once a week. I find it difficult because I want to but I'm not getting around to it though and then I have to post a massive summary of my week. So in that tradition here I go :)
Well this was one of those "I can't wait till this week is over because it is horrendous" kind of week. I had 2 tests this past week, one on Thursday and the other one of Friday. The Thursday test was on my Politics and Society class and I know it would have gone better if I had read everything I was supposed to read. We have two textbooks in that class, one focusing on a lot of theory and sociology/politics stuff and the other one is about taking sides on controversial U.S. political issues. I read most of the theory stuff but figured that I could get away with the pro/con side of the issues because since I kinda know what's going on with a lot of the issues I could make educated guesses on those questions. BIG MISTAKE I tell you! The questions were phrased in a very incomprehensible way so I was left to purely guess, hope for the best, and make it up the rest of the way with some hard work. I have a debate coming up in that class on the 11th of October and I'm going to make sure I do my best :)
So Friday's test was for my International Security class and a lot of us were worried because there was a good couple of hundred pages of reading and it was not easy to comprehend. We have review sessions every Wednesday for that class and our TA's told us to check out WebCT because since we're able to post questions and the answers that can be used for the test if they are good enough. So all during the review session the TA's kept recommending us to check WebCT because they were going to use some of the questions. On Thursday night I tried to do some of the readings for the test but just went to bed at about midnight, woke up at 5 and went to WebCT to basically memorize the questions and the answers. Since my test was at 9 I had a good solid 4 hours to read the questions over and over and try my best. So I went to take the test and I was very grateful that 90% of the questions in the test had been on WebCT. Word for word, nothing changed from the questions that had been posted so that was a gimme test to make sure the GPA stays up :) Yay for me and much thanks to the Man upstairs :)
To add to the week's stress and frustration was that we had our intramural flag football game on Thursday again. We felt pretty sure that we could win this game since we have a stout defense and our offense can explode when it wants to. On that note, we started the game on defense and I'm covering the guy on the outside and since the QB never throws to my side of the field I let my guy get behind me and much to my surprise the ball was thrown and my guy was for all intent and purposes wide open. The ball was overthrown and we dodged a bullet with my coverage but I hoped that the QB would be overconfident and I could bait him on throwing it again to my side. It worked because on the next play the ball was thrown to my guy on a post pattern and I was able to jump in front of him, tap it to myself and intercept it. It was my first interception and we got to play on offense and I was able to scramble and run for some yardage but I threw an interception, basically negating what we did on defense. That's how the game basically went. Our defense is stout, in 3 games we've only allowed 3 TD's but other than in the first game, our offense has yet to click consistently. It didn't help that I threw 3 INT's this game and our other QB threw a couple as well because there was basically no blocking from our blockers. I mean, as soon as the ball was snapped I had to get rid of the ball and it's not a good thing when you have the wind blowing against you and the ball just floats in the air. Bad combination. We had a couple of nice chances down the field on some deep throws but if there were a difference of a couple inches we would have had a couple of TD's. Oh well, we hope to practice this week and try to get some plays down and a basic understanding of what the blocking should be like just so we don't have to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We need to win the next one so we can move on in our march for the championship. We've got the defense, we just need to score some points :)
I'm glad for weekends because I'm able to do nothing and be lazy for the most part until I got to work at 5. I get to miss the best games though but that's ok because at least I'm getting some $$$ for my trouble :) I should start writing for my take home test for my modern American military history class. It shouldn't be too hard since it's a take home exam and we have the whole weekend and a couple days because we turn it in on Wednesday. I don't think anything else has happened, although there's a Social Services career day on Wednesday and I saw that the FBI is going to be here. I know they are always in the need for linguists so I'm gonna check them out to see what they have to offer.

And the quest for what to do after college continues...

What an experience!

2005-09-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

Well I'm back from watching my first ever musical and I have to say that it was pretty amazing to see! Seeing Miss Saigon in person was more than I expected because you get transported back to the place where all the events happened, South Vietnam. I know I might sound weird for saying this because I'm a guy, but if any of you guys want to reach out and experience something different, watching a musical of this quality is great! Great acting, wonderful sound, great soundtrack, and an amazing storyline.
I'll sum up the storyline for those of you who are interested. It's the story of an American soldier and a South Vietnamese woman who meet each other in the midst of the Vietnam War. It's a love story entangled in the middle of this war setting and it's wonderfully played out. They are able to marry and as he is able to leave Vietnam he is able to secure her papers so that she can leave as well but because of the mayhem of trying to evacuate the Vietnamese during the U.S. withdrawal she is left behind. He later makes a new life in the states while she continues to struggle because of the horrendous conditions in the new unified Vietnam. She has the soldier's child (he does not know this) and she tries her hardest to let him somehow know that he has a son. The problem is that after 3 years he is married to another woman in the states, has made a new life and now a critical decision faces him and his wife... I'll leave it at that for you guys and if you're interested you can try watching it or listening to the soundtrack :)

What else has gone over here in Iowa? Well I had 2 great phone conversations Friday night. I was able to talk to Kristen for a while and then to Annie as well as talk to some people online (gotta love multitasking :)). We had Mr. Wells up from Kansas City this Sabbath and he gave a sermon on Trusting In God and it was pretty good. Mr. Wells is sometimes hard to follow but he did a really good job with today's sermon. I think I got a lot out of it. He talked about how we not only need to trust God when there are good times but we have to trust Him especially when times get tough. He mentioned how trusting God means depending on God for our protection, salvation, and deliverance. It was really encouraging to hear :) (Plus, Mr. Wells told me I looked sharper than I had before, I guess it must have been the new haircut and the aqua tie I was wearing today, lol :P)
Anyways, this week things a looking stressful because I've got my Politics and Society test on Thursday and then I've got my International Security test on Friday. Oh and we have Career Day on Wednesday when all these companies come to the coliseum and do an expo and are offering internships, co-ops, full-time jobs, so I'm gonna go to that and see what is available. Plus, I've got work tomorrow night, Monday night, and Thursday night. Study time is far and few in between. I've got another intramural flag football game this Thursday too and I think we'll do better than we did this past week and win. We just gotta change up the pace at QB a bit with some scrambling, running and passing and show 'em who's boss :)
Pretty busy and heavy week planned out so I hope that I can survive it. Oh, and as I was doing my Bible Study this morning I figured out that my debate on whether America should restrict immigration is scheduled on the Day of Atonement...not exactly the news I wanted to know. I hope the prof is able to understand (cause it's kinda hard to change the dates on a debate) and maybe move it up for the class period before Atonement. Here's to some much needed Godly intervention on this week's affairs :)

Burger King, Home of the Whopper What's Your Beef?

2005-09-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

You know I have to start off my subject line with a reference from Fresh Prince! It's classic I tell you, classic! I think I'm going to start requesting my Feast gift to be every season of Fresh Prince on DVD, I can never get tired of watching that show even if I've seen an episode 50 times, which I have before and know every line :P

So I haven't blogged in a week and I'm gonna make this one kinda short since I have to go to class in a bit. I'll post some more tonight with more detail. We had our intramural flag football game yesterday and we had about 12 people on our team this time. We can play 7 at a time so we had people to sub in and out but I played the whole game cause I don't get too tired and I just like being on the field all the time :) I played receiver the whole game this time and caught a couple of passes and our only touchdown. The other team had only 6 on their side but basically had 3 good guys and 3 decoys. We played them close by playing some good defense but our offense was inconsistent. Since the QB gets rushed almost every play I was thinking of maybe lining up at QB for a couple of series to change the pace and scramble, run if the lane is open (which it was because the other team was playing a soft zone) or pass if the guy is open. After the game Jerad (our team captain and stud receiver) and I talked and said that I should have gotten in on a couple of plays at QB just to keep the defense off balance. Oh well, we still got plenty of games left plus these are like preseason while sorting out which teams should be in certain divisions. It's fun to play intramurals.

Oh and on a cultural note, I am going to be attending what I think is the second greatest musical in the world. Miss Saigon is going to be here in Ames this Saturday night and since I like the soundtrack and the storyline, I figured I should be educated and see the performance since it's like almost across the street from me. It's going to be great, I'm excited. It's the first real high quality musical I will be attending. So who knows, maybe I'll be able to see Phantom of the Opera in Broadway this summer or in the coming year :) More details later!

Domination? Sure, but there's more to life than that

2005-09-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Today was our first intramural flag football game and I have to say that it was fun and we actually won too! My friend Jerad put the team together and we had exactly 7 players on the field. The thing is that about 15 minutes before the game started 2 of our guys (Mike Dorothy was one of them) didn't bring the student I.D. cards that they need in order to play. So off they go in my car to get their cards and we had to start playing with only 5 of us against the other team's 7. You can play as long as you have at least 4 guys on the field...it's just that it's a challenge to cover that much of the field with only 5 of us and we're shorthanded at that too.
It actually wasn't too bad because we were able to contain them on their first drive by playing a New England Patriots' kind of zone and we got the ball back. We had a touchdown pass called back because of a penalty so we ended up punting the ball and they proceeded to score on a deep pass when they started on offense. Right at that time Mike and the other guy finally arrive (I'm not joking, it seemed like they took a half hour to get back) and we started on offense and were actually playing pretty well but didn't score. I was alternating at quarterback with another guy and I completed a couple of passes and scrambled around for some first downs but I did my "Jake Plummer stupid play of the game" with a poorly thrown wobbly deep ball interception which was returned for a touchdown. The thing is that I had the whole field in front of me with nobody near me and I don't know why I decided to chuck the ball instead of run like Vick for the first down. Oh well, instead of going to halftime down 7-0 we were down 14-0.
New half means new start and we got our game face on and just went on a prolific scoring spree. I jammed my shoulder on one of those scrambles when I dove for the first down so the other guy started quarterbacking and I started playing receiver. Then out of nowhere we start throwing deep bombs do Brian and he catched ALL of them, hands of glue I tell ya. Everyone was working for us. Short passes and running for the first down, long deep passes, 2 point conversions...and on defense they couldn't score on us and I think we ended up with 35 points or something like that. 35 points in the second half alone! So yeah, great game and got some good exercise out of it too :) I'm telling ya, we played like the Patriots whenever they fall behind and then start clamping down and playing serious :)
The NFL kicked off tonight too with the Oakland Raiders playing the New England Patriots so I was stoked for that! I also got a job on campus too just yesterday. I start on Sunday and I've got to go by tomorrow and do some payroll stuff and get my uniform. I work Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays and it's about 14 hours a week so it ain't too bad. Plus I think the pay is $7.25-$7.50/hr. so it helps out to pay my bills and all. The thing is that I work Thursdays from 6:00pm-9:00pm but our intramural games are at 6 as well. Hmmm, quite a dilemma there too but I hope they'll let me work something out since they like their students to participate in university clubs and organizations (and believe it or not, flag football is part of involving yourself in the community :)). So let's see what happens there.
On a more somber note, I would like to ask you guys to please pray for Mrs. Blackman, our deaconess in the Des Moines congregation. She suffered congestive heart failure and is recovering slowly. Mr. and Mrs. Blackman have had a very, very rough summer due to the fact that she suffered a stroke in May and Mr. Blackman suffered a heart attack not too long after that. They're the pillars of our congregation in Des Moines and are such an example for young people like me, plus they have done so many nice things for me and have helped me out in numerous occassions. I've stayed over at their house many times and we've seen the past 2 Super Bowls too (Mr. Blackman has a huge big screen TV). They need your prayers and I know they would appreciate it too. Thanks guys, it's been a rough year for a lot of us but I firmly believe what it says in God's word.

James 5:14-16: "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."

You make my liver quiver

2005-09-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you're a true nerd and a fan of the best 90's show ever, you know that my subject line comes from Will Smith in Fresh Prince of Bel Air :)

Beautiful weekend I tell you, just plain beautiful! The social event of the end of summer/beginning of fall was amazing! Lisa Wilson and Ben Kreyer's wedding was wonderfully done, beautiful in every way, organized, fancy yet simple all at the same time. I'll admit I started crying during the wedding, what can I say I'm an emotional guy :) Plus, I consider Lisa as being an older sister and now she's married and it finally hit me! Mike and I got to help with the parking and greeting people for the wedding and we even got our picture taken too. I was just happy to help out in anything and it was great to see so many people from all over the place. There were people from a bunch of congregations like Omaha, Kansas City, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin...all over the place I tell you!
After the wedding of course there's the reception where people let loose and have tons of clean kosher fun :) Hey when there's a bar selling beer for a $1 at the reception, you know it's awesome!!! :) There was some good food but I was still a bit hungry afterwards but then the dancing started and that was a blast, at least for me. The music was a little bit of everything, country classics along with Goo Goo Dolls, Hoobastank, swing music, disco, funky dance music...great selection all around. I even put to use the moves I learned while at camp...yep I even did some polka (and I'm Puerto Rican which means I'm not supposed to do stuff like that :P). Loads of fun along with great conversation with people like Scott and Steven Bashes, Richard Pomicter, and a lot of people who were there.
So the wedding and all that fun stuff took up much of the weekend and I just acted lazy on Monday. Didn't do too much even though the school readings are piling up but I'm getting some of it done, just at a slow pace :) Oh I just remembered to mention that Mr. Monson's sermon on the Sabbath was wonderful. Josh already mentioned it and it was about overcoming which is what this Christian life is about. There will be good times but there will also be bad times and you have to put your reliance and trust in God that He will see you through, He will guide you, and even carry you through some of the most difficult times of your life. I've always had a saying and it goes like this, "Life is all about ups and downs, it's how you pick yourself up from the downs that matters most."
Anyways, I hope you guys had just as much of a great weekend as I did. Keep safe and I'll be talking to you guys later.

*Off to be productive for the day*

Even though some of it is blown out of proportion I thought you guys might enjoy it,especially those who've heard my family description :)

2005-08-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

You Know You're Puerto Rican When....

You have been spanked with a folded leather belt and/or "chancletas" ...leather ones!

You know your mom is sneaking up on you cause you can hear her "chancletas" flapping on the linoleum floor.

Your mom yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner and you only live in a one bedroom apartment.

You've ever called linoleum floor a "rug"

You can get to your house blindfolded by the smell of the "chuletas."

You say "Vamoj pa' encima" or "mete mano" instead of "Let's get started."

You got scared whenever someone mentioned "el CUUUCO"!!!

You remember every Christmas those "aguinaldos" that abuela used to sing for you.

You've gone to titi's house and passed through the "bead curtain" in the living room.

You know someone who owns a conga, bongos and/or a cowbell.

You step into a house that has all those little figurines taking up every inch of space on the tv and under the tv.

You have a porcelain cat/dog/rooster or frog on a doilie in your living room.

You have a perpetually semi-drunk uncle.

Someone in your family is named Maria, Charlie, Papo, Ana or Carmen.

You call rug-carpeta , roof-rufo, parking-palkin, stress-estress, library-libreria (instead of biblioteca), boiler-boila, sucker-soca, or to knock-noquiar.

You have told your kid not to walk the floor barefoot or they'll catch a cold.

You need a cup of coffee after every meal, expresso boricua style "con leche".

Your sister has hair on her legs and as much moustache as your father.

One of your aunt's weighs over 300 pounds.

You have one or more cousins in and out of jail.

Your uncle has more gold in his mouth and/or neck than you've ever seen.

You have sat in a two-passenger car with over 5 people in it.

You put a big Puerto Rican flag on your car... an a PR bumper sticker.

You have a picture of "Cristo" or a crucifix in your house.

You actually think some names begin with "Ave Maria pur?ma, Papo."

You walk around saying "chacho" or "chacha" or "ay,bendito".

You have said, "no, hombe" instead of "no, hombre" to both sexes.

You do that funny pointing thing with your nose and if the person doesn't understand you, you use the lips for emphasis.

You can speak with your face: twitch like a rabbit to ask "what do you want? or nod your head upwards to mean "wassup?"

You have driven a "cheby" (Chevy) or a "forito" (Ford)!

You call all sneakers "loj tennis" and the Converse are "loj champion".

All cereal is called "con-flei"

All brands of diapers are called "pampel".

You have ever ground plᴡnos and/or fingers for pasteles during Christmas time.

Your car has fifteen speakers in it and you fix it every weekend.

You remember when Heineken replaced Shaeffer and Schlitz.

Your dinner consists of a "mixta"...rice and beans and some kind of meat.

Your uncle has a wife and a "corteja" or "chilla".

You've put a penny on your forehead to stop a nose bleed.

Your mother has put a balled up piece of thread on your baby cousin's forehead to stop her hiccups.

You have at least thirty cousins.

You know how to drive "estandard" or "estick" shift.

You can tell the difference between Cafe Rico and anything else.

A coqui's sound has driven you crazy.

Your grandmother thinks Vick's vapor-rub is the miracle cure for everything.

You're proud to be Puerto Rican - and you pass these jokes on to all your Puerto Rican friends!

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I don't know if everybody will agree with this

2005-08-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

MARTIN
M	is for	Mesmerizing
A	is for	Active
R	is for	Responsible
T	is for	Trustworthy
I	is for	Ideal
N	is for	Neat

What Does Your Name Mean?

This is comforting considering that I'm a political science major :)

2005-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Kosher Rant

2005-08-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

The worst part of starting school again is the fact of all the stinkin' temptation surrounding a poor Puerto Rican like me. I think Cassie Fritts put it best when we were in Mackinac Island on for the biking trip, "the hoochies are out today!" That's exactly how it is here on campus, all you're able to see is a miniskirt here, a miniskirt there, hot pants here and another pair over there...it's horrible I tell you. As a guy I'm always trying to fight the lust of the eyes and these girls dressing like hoochies/skanks/whores (insert appropiate term here) does not help any guy think of women in a positive way. Some women wonder why guys only view them as sex objects? Have they seen themselves in the mirror before they leave for classes? I mean, these women have "Sex" or "Sleep With Me" written on their foreheads. No wonder there's no more respect for the opposite sex anymore in this society, they dress up (more like dress down) so that they can get something that is only special in a marriage relationship.
I'm glad that the girls I know in the Church are modest in what they wear. I mean that because it shows that they have a respect for themselves and are willing to keep their brothers thinking clean thoughts :) That's always important too because if the ladies are showing off what God blessed them with then she's building a bad reputation. Again, thank you to all the ladies in the Church who exemplify modesty. A big stamp of approval on that :)
Well that was my big holier than thou rant for the day. It was just something that had been on my mind since the beginning of the school year. Like Kerr said, "if you gotta put your hand so that it does not show your underwear it means you're a skank." If only they would listen.

Se ven bien las cosas :)

2005-08-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I had written something a couple of days ago and saved the draft but I think it is so pointless that I figure I should just write an entirely new post. Not much has gone on the past couple of days here except for a few things here and there about small things.

It all starts off this past Wednesday night when I was headed to the Rec to play some basketball with a friend of mine and I put my student ID card inside my shoe (like I've done before) and started the whole 15 minute walk to that side of campus. So for some reason I decided to stop once we're about 5 minutes away from the Rec to check if my ID card was still in my shoe and to my surprise it wasn't (panicking mode!). So my friend and I retrace our steps all the way back to the dorm building and we weren't able to find it. So we decide to play ball at State Gym and had a good time. I didn't play my best but I came on strong in the latter part of the game. It always seems that it takes me a while to get going when I'm playing b-ball, as if I have to calm my nerves and anxiousness to do too much while starting out to play. Hmmm, I guess it's something I need to keep working on, although I'm happy that I have a more consistent jumper and my ball handling keeps improving.

After playing ball I came back to my room and checked my email and thankfully this girl found my ID card and all that although I'm still waiting for her to put it in campus mail or something like that. Not much has gone on since then, I've been working out a little bit every day so I feel good about that. I always feel better when I'm active in sports or some sort of physical activity, but I think I've been feeling better for different reasons though.
I've been more diligent in reading my Bible, praying and I can see the difference in how my day goes. That's not to say that I am doing everything right, far from it but I'm trying harder to put God first and see how all the chips fall in place. I don't know about any of you guys but that's probably been the hardest thing for me to accomplish in my life. I've always tried too hard to do things myself, when things became difficult I would kinda go solo and deal with things in a very fleshly, hard headed way (some of you out there are probably saying, "no kidding"). I'm still worried about how this year is going to go, life after-school, career, place to live, etc. I'm in a little bit of a panic mode because I want to know what exactly I want to be doing the rest of my life, where I am going to live (I don't know if I want to stay in the Midwest, move East or down South). A lot of researching and decision making that is going to be taking place in the next couple of weeks and months but I know it'll be ok. God will put me in the path the He knows is best for me, even if I don't realize it at the moment.
I had a great Sabbath too this past weekend. Something about it that made it extra special and joyful than the previous Sabbaths. We had a great sermon by Mr. Bryce titled "The Greatness of God, Part 2" which was wonderful and incredibly nourishing. Although every time I hear that there's a part 1 & 2 of certain sermons I'm always thinking that there's a remix involved, I guess that's because of all the R&B/hip hop I've heard in my life :) I'm always expecting like some DJ mixing up the opening music or something like that :) It's a wonderful sermon by the way and I highly recommend it for any of you out there who hasn't seen it yet. So I talked to quite a few people after Church but the plus was being able to talk to Sabrina on the phone. She returned my phone call from the night before and we talked a little while as she was driving back from Church to JMU. Quite an awesome conversation too, plus she digged the fact that my message invoice is in Spanish so nobody understands what the machine is saying. What can I say, I like to be different :)
All in all, it's been good and I just have to make sure I keep doing my part in everything while God takes care of the rest. Now I have to try and find a job right now to give myself some sort of income for this semester :)

Beginning of the end

2005-08-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

So after starting the first two days of class I must say that it wasn't as horrifying as I thought. I started off with 3 History classes (*shudders*), 1 Political Science class, and a LAS (Liberal Arts and Studies) class for a total of 15 credits. Actually I didn't really start out with that many classes but I was able to add the classes that I needed to fulfill my requirements. The 3 History classes I'm taking are: Moderm American Military History (oh yeah!), History of Mexico Since Independence, History of England from 1525-1700. The military history class is the one I am excited about because I have been trying to get into it for 2 years now and it's going to be awesome. Plus, the professor had me when he said we could make as much fun of the French as possible (can it get any better than that? I think not! :)) The other 2 history classes are going to be interesting because it's two entirely different countries with stark historical differences. Oh well, I like to say that I love challenges so it's going to be quite an uphill climb this semester with just those 3 classes.
I did attend my LAS 350 class which was going to focus on World History in the 20th Century but I knew it wasn't for me when the prof, who is an old California lady, product of UCLA (middle of la-la land), proclaimed herself a "liberal, proud of it, part of a movement that gave the U.S. its civil rights, women rights, etc, and that she was tired of the abuse that the right has done." I'm not joking people, that was word for word what she said. Plus she asked if there was anyone from Texas because she doesn't understand why Texans think they're so great plus she is not very impressed with the current crop of Texans running the White House. So yeah, I basically left that class and went to the computer lab to see if there was a Political Science class that I could take instead of that because there is no way I can survive a course like that. Those of you who know me know that I cannot stand liberalism, their lies, their propaganda and everything they stand for (or lack to stand for).
I went to the computer lab in the Political Science department and found this course which focuses on International Security Policy which deals with the theory behind decision making, diplomacy, coerced diplomacy and all that jazz. So I ran up the 5 flight of stairs to talk to my advisor to see if the prof for that class had a good rep and all and she said he was awesome and it would serve me well if I wanted to choose that type of career or if I went to grad school. So I thanked her for her time and then went back down the 5 flight of stairs and added that class and dropped the liberal from California's class which would do me no good. So basically now I have 3 History classes and 2 Political Science courses for this semester. Probably my most challenging semester so far but I have to take at least 3 history classes because I needed 6 classes between this semester and next to fulfill all my history requirements. I think I'll only need one more Political Science course after this semester and the rest will take care of itself.
I'll need 18 credits next semester (as full of a load as anyone can get) in order to graduate on time but it's doable. I know it'll be hard but I think I can do it and I'll make sure I graduate on time next May (YAY!). Now the panicking is about what I am going to do after graduation. Is it going to be grad school or job for me?? Where am I going to live, work, etc...I know the key is not to stress out because God will work it out :) That's the biggest relief I have right there, that God will show me the way that I should go...I just hope He shows me soon :)

Now I should seriously take some initiative and start reading for some of my history classes...but of course that's what tomorrow's for :P

Hate It Or Love It

2005-08-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

So I spent my first back in Ames last night and I can't really complain about the comfort and spaciness of my room. The loft is sturdy, everything is newly furnished and it smells clean!!! If any of you out there know me really well you'll know that cleanliness is a big deal to me. I think it's also the fact that the building is only 3 years old as opposed to Friley Hall which seems like it's been there since prehistoric times.
So we just had our first house meeting. I must say that at the beginning of every academic year I realize more and more how a lot of these people have no idea what life is all about. It reminds me of the final Christian Living class Mr. Weston gave at LYC 2005 when he talked about the search for the eternal buzz. He spoke on how Solomon basically did and tried everything that supposedly provided pleasure: jewelry, alcohol, sex, etc and it still wasn't enough. At the end of it all he realized it was all vanity and that's what I see in how a lot of these people see this life. They're out doing their thing, whether it's drinking, partying or having sex and that's how they continue the rest of their lives. Instead of spending 4 years on education, they spend 6 or 7 years because they wasted so many years on the pleasures of the flesh. I'm glad this is my last year of school as an undergraduate because I want to be able to finally seclude myself from what I have to see every day here at school. Whoa, I sound kinda preachy and although I didn't mean to I just had to put my say as to what I think of this whole college experience.
So Sabbath is near and I'm glad for it. It'll be the first time I would be in Des Moines since before L4T and only the 2nd time I'll be attending there since May. What can I say, traveling and all this fun summer stuff makes attending my local congregation very hard :)
Hmmm, I said on one of my earlier posts that I was gonna give my whole opinion of camp, L4T, stuff in general. So I'm tackling what I think is one of the subjects that is misunderstood when it comes up in guy/girl conversation. It's on the whole issue of lists. I'm going to explain it the way I think of it and I apologize if I haven't explained before to some of you when the topic has come up.
Each one of us has certain qualities, requirements, characteristics that we like in the opposite sex. Some of these qualities might be: intelligence, converted, sense of humor, hard worker, gentleman (or lady for the fellas), honest, trustworthy, athletic, thinker, etc. When we start thinking about the type of person that we want to share our life with, we have qualities that we desire, a sort of list of things we seek in the other person. I think the word "list" has a bad reputation when it comes up in those conversations and I admit that I am probably one of those who's helped give it a bad name.
Anyways, we have expectations of the opposite sex. We probably don't write it down and make it an "official" list but we have it in our minds. Following this train of thought, there are people we know that we consider friends that fulfill those requirements. Does it mean that because that guy/girl fulfills someone's requirement in a partner that a relationship will be conceived? OF course not because that's where the whole element of attraction and romance comes in. Certain people might have those characteristics that we like but that doesn't mean that we'll like them in a romantic way because there might not be that attraction that is needed. I know that personally, there are awesome Church girls who have all the characteristics to make an awesome wife but alas, there's no connection in a "more than friends" way. I'm sure that goes for a lot of you too. When I speak of a "list" or whatever that means the girls who have the qualities that I look for. There's no order to it or favoritism or anything like that, just girls who have awesome qualities. I know for a fact that I haven't really tried to explain it this way before and contributed to the hype of it. As long as you have a good reputation, you're doing the things that you're SUPPOSED to be doing, you treat the girls (or guys) with respect, and you don't make an --- of yourself then you should be ok. I know that I myself have done exactly the opposite many, many times and still reap the consequences.
Well I don't know if this post made any sense (especially the last part) but if I didn't explain something clearly then please let me know through your comments or email me too. The subject comes from 50 Cent and Game's song and I wanted to imply that "hate it or love it we all have some sort of list." OF course as I started typing this up I saw that it would sound insensitive so I felt compelled to explain. I know that I have done (and still do) my fair share of pigheaded things and I want to go and say that I'm trying very hard to put those days behind me. So I apologize for the harm I've caused in word or action to any of you. Hmmm, maybe I made this post too personal but I think that's what I said when I started this blog out. I'm guessing it's ok to be more personal on certain things but hate it or love it that's how I am. :)

Happy Sabbath to you all!

Frustated Already

2005-08-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

So tonight I decided to play some basketball since I had absolutely nothing to do. So at 9 I changed and walked over to the student parking lot since I left my basketball in the car and after I went and got it I headed off to the State Gym since it's literally the building next to the one I live in. To my surprise a bunch of curry-smelling Indians are playing the most physically challenging sport known to man: badminton. The thing is, they're hogging the whole gym and causing quite a stench. So I head off to Beyer Hall which is across the street from State Gym and they have nice courts as well but of course they're resurfacing the floor so that means nobody can play there. My last attempt is to walk 15 minutes to the Rec Center where they have innumerable basketball courts and they're open until midnight. As I approach the Rec Center I remember that I left my Student ID card in my room (since I didn't need it to get into State Gym which is where I originally wanted to go) and they won't let you into the Rec without your card. Of course I go in and they ask me for my card and I say I didn't have it with me but I knew my card number, I offered my SS number....anything just to shoot hoops for an hour or so. Of course they won't let me so I walk 15 minutes back to where I live and it's already 9:40 or so ad I haven't played at all. So I attempt to go into State Gym again knowing that they close at 10 and it's still smellin' like curry sauce...nasty smell I tell you. So I'm only able to dribble around for maybe 15 mins and then the lights go off. What a crappy deal. Why in the world can't the Rec accept my card number as proof that I am a student? Why are smelly foreigners clogging up the State Gym already at the beginning of the moving in process? Thus it is why I feel this way. Can't even let the guy paying an exhorbitant amount of money shoot some hoops to get his mind off of things. Anyways, 3 post in one day...I feel like I've got a lot of catching up to do :) Good night to all

Hmmm, learning how to do some major blunders :)

2005-08-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

So here I am in my first night back in Ames! I think I've been pretty productive so far in the whole *moving* process. I brought back all the stuff I had in Omaha and stuffed it (literally) all into my little Ford Escort and stayed in Des Moines last night at the deacon's house. I had a pretty good night's sleep and woke up mysteriously at 6am without the need for an alarm :P So I talked to Mr. and Mrs. Blackman for a bit and then headed off for Ames with my packed car. Of course with Des Moines being under construction at every single turn I got lost for about 20-25 minutes trying to find the right interstate exit (why do I always feel like I'm going around in circles in that city without getting anywhere).
Anyways, I got to Ames at about 8:30 and I was glad I decided to do this early because there was barely anybody here. No stressing over parking, no inadvertant running into idiots who don't look as to where they are going...no idiots whatsoever. So I took of my backpacks and sling packs and checked-in and went to the pimped-up suite room I have this year. Of course Mike Dorothy was sleeping and I woke him up and he helped me in taking my stuff up. I love having elevators instead of going up 4 flight of stairs like I was used to doing in the old building. So after everything was loaded out of the car I started unpacking everything. After a couple of hours I got everything set in order and the computer running (yay for technology!). So of course after getting the laptop running I didn't do anything productive the rest of the day other than check my email, reply to a lot of people that I wasn't able to write to in a long time (due to my summer exile), watch some tv, read the news, all that unproductive stuff that I didn't do during the summer.
So as 4pm came and went I did some light working out and I went to grab a meal to eat at the Dining Center but to my surprise apparently there was no dinner being served because of the freshman orientation stuff going on today!!! Arrgh, I was kinda disappointed because I skipped lunch thinking of grabbing a big dinner but it didn't work out that way. So I grabbed a somewhat decent sandwich at the Student Store and some tortilla chips and tried to subdue the hunger. Hmmm, I should have checked the online menu to see if dinner was being served but alas I'm becoming more and more like my best friend Jonny G :) Absent mindedness is a contagious thing you know.
Hmmm, I have the urge to go and play some bball so off I go to work out a bit more. I'm not a big fan of school but I'm glad I have communication with the outside world :)

Back for some more punishment

2005-08-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Well here I am back in Ames in preparation for my final year of college! I'm not going to make this a long post since I'm still getting things ready in the room and making sure I have all the things I need. It's good to be back in civilization with super fast Internet connection and be able to update my blog. I'll post about camp and other stuff later on tonight. I guess I just wanted to write something "new" to my blog since the last thing I talked about was how stoked I was for meeting Grant Hill :)

*Off I go to be productive*

It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to...

2005-06-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, my subject line refers to what Aaliyah and Timbaland eloquently stated in the Romeo Must Die sountrack back in the day :) Yes, yes, I know it has been a while since I posted anything on my blog but here I am on a beautiful Sabbath Day resting my body from the rigors of two overtime weeks and updating all my people who read this (if there are any left) on the events of this Puerto Rican's never dull life.
Ok so first off I have to explain what I've been up to since the end of school in the first week of May. I flew down from Omaha to Ft. Lauderdale to spend some time with my aunt who had an apartment there. I left my car with Kim since she needed one for the summer and I packed 3 suitcases and 2 carry-ons to my location in Florida (thank you Southwest Airlines for allowing one person to carry that much luggage :)). So I got to Ft. Lauderdale and spent some time with my aunt there and then the two of us went to visit her daughter and son in Orlando during the weekend since I hadn't seen them in about 4 years. My cousins are pretty cool people, we all grew up together and the last time I had seen Alfred was in 2001 when he was on leave after boot camp in the Marines and Ivonne hadn't visited PR since 2000 or 2001. So we spent that weekend up in Orlando but we had to go back because my aunt was selling her apartment and I had to help her move out.
That was an experience in itself because basically everything that my aunt had was going to be moved to Orlando plus I had all my overpacked stuff to take as well but we were able to get everything out and off we went to Orlando again on the May, 22nd. In the meantime though I was able to check out my grades for this past semester when I went to the library and saw that I was able to somehow pull off one the biggest surprises I have ever encountered. In spite of the liberal professors I had to face off against and all their moronic teachings, I somehow got 3 A's and 2 A-s...for a semester GPA of 3.87!!! :) Oh yeah, I almost did a Michael Jordan-esque fist pump after hitting a game winning shot when I saw my grades because it had been by far my toughest semester yet. It hadn't been easy because the classes were harder and because of everything that we went through emotionally and spiritually but somehow God helped me out on doing the best that I had ever done in a college semester. The glory and honor is His because I seriously don't know how it came about, I just know that I am grateful and things are looking up. Plus, I'm back on the Dean's list after a 2 semester absence :-P.
So I have been in Orlando since the 22nd of May and basically working at Subway like a madman :) There's a funny story as to how I got my job at Subway because there were 3 places all next door to each other that I was going to apply to. There was a Blockbuster Video, a Pizza Hut, and a Subway. I applied first to Blockbuster and here in Florida they have these little phone/computers where you apply electronically and it took about 40 minutes and I just had a feeling I wasn't going to hear from them. After that excruciating application (they asked the same question 40 different ways, it was like a psych test or something), I went into Pizza Hut and they said that that specific store wasn't hiring yet but there was another one down the road somewhere that was, but since I don't know the area I just took an application and said, "ok, I'll figure it out." Last but not least, I went into Subway and asked for an application and since I had nothing to do I just filled it up right there and then since I saw that the manager was sitting down on the next table doing a food order. "This was my chance", I thought since I had worked at a Subway 3 years ago and thought I could go back into the flow of things and I was desperate for work/money to afford all the summer expenses. So I gave my application to the manager and 5-10 minutes later I walked out of Subway with a job and at least 30-40hrs a week of work. Once again, God answering the call when I need Him :)
Even though my cousin does have a computer and cable connection (incredibly fast) her computer was acting up because it had a virus(es) which I haven't been able to fix so I hooked up my laptop to the cable and I've been able to read my email, check up on my Fantasy baseball team, and talk to a couple of people online.
My mother and grandma came on the 26th of May to Orlando to visit and they stayed for 3 weeks. They basically visited because my older brother had his first daughter born prematurely in March and so my Mom is a grandmother for the first time :) My older brother and his family live in Tampa so we visited a couple of times and Mom and I actually stayed there one weekend too (it was Pentecost weekend actually). It was wonderful to see the baby and yes, it is very cool to be an uncle for the first time as well. The baby's name is Lily Leilani, and she is a special baby because she's named after my Mom and she's doing wonderful and is healthy (which is very important since she was prematurely born). She's a great baby, all gooey with long fingers and toes (oh yeah, she's going to have toes like us :)) and just a joy to take care of. She barely cries too, only when she needs to be fed and changed and she actually likes to take baths!!! That's amazing considering that most babies are anti-bath, she actually cries when you take her out of the water. Truly a joy to be with. Speaking of which, it was great to see my brother as well because I hadn't seen him in 4 years as well because he had been living in Tampa and I've been in Iowa as well so it was great to see him. He had rented the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith video game for PS2 and was awesome on it. It was an ironic feeling watching him play a game like that because it used to be when we were younger he would watch my younger bro and I get all into the games and since I haven't played a whole lot in the past couple of years I think I found my niche again. My bro (whose name is Ruben) was having problems in defeating General Grievous with Obi Wan Kenobi so I volunteered my services and asked him what the controls were and off I went to fight against a very hard enemy. I was getting all into the game too and without any practice or anything I finally defeated the General after a handful of tries and then gave the control to Ruben because my fingers were hurting, lol.
Anyways, after a great Pentecost weekend we all came back to Orlando and I've basically been working my butt off at Subway which has yielded some great celebrity experiences this summer :) First off, my first week I met Drew Gooden who played with the Orlando Magic for a couple of years with Tracy McGrady and is now playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers with Lebron. I saw him come in through the door and I was like, "I think that's Drew Gooden", but I didn't want to say anything because I wanted to be sure I got the right name but I mustered up the confidence to talk to him and made his sandwich and talked a little bit and shook his hand. It was a pretty cool experience because I had never met anyone famous in person like that before!!!
And just when I thought I had seen it all last week during lunch rush one of the best basketball players and ultimate nice guy comes in. The one and only Grant Hill is there carrying his daughter and I was like, "Whoa, that's Grant Hill!!!!" and I was getting all excited because I was doing the bread, cheese, and meat part of the sandwich and Grant Hill was right in front of me. I congratulated him on an awesome comeback season and he said thanks and then ordered 2 Kid's Packs, one for him and one for his daughter. It was so awesome because there was a huge line to the door almost and I kept my eye on him while I was making sandwiches for all these people during lunch rush. Let me tell you guys, I was making sandwiches at a Flash-like pace because Grant Hill actually sat down and ate with his daughter and I wanted to make sure I got at least something autographed. So after the line died down I told my manager that I needed to at least get a napkin signed and I grabbed a napkin and one of the markers we had and as he was leaving I asked him for his autograph and he signed my napkin and we shook hands and off he went with his daughter. AWESOME EXPERIENCE I TELL YOU!!! Now I have an autograph and experiences to go with the summer, plus a little money (I have accumulated overtime the past two weeks), and I get to see my awesome girl back in Omaha this next week.
I fly back to Omaha on the 22nd and then I'm planning to go with Jon, Kim, and maybe Ann for the wedding reception on July 4th weekend in KC. Let's see what happens for that and then Jon and I are planning the road trip to L4T and LYC to spend 3 weeks of nerrdiness with the whole crew :)
Well, I don't when will be the next time that I will be able to post but I wanted to write something since some of you have told me that I should let you guys know how I've been doing and let you know that I haven't disappeared. I love you all and I'll see many of you soon. Take care, keep safe, and drive carefully. Happy Sabbath :)

Continuation of the great joeorb! :)

2005-05-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

Ok so it's taken me a while to continue the story on how the weekend in Chicago/Milwaukee went. I read Ann's blog and I think we've summed up how the weekend went, all the emotions involved, and now how we have to finish up with school and off to a wonderful summer God willing.
So after poker night we all went back to the Diekmeier's and proceeded to pass out after trying to watch "The 6th Day." Mrs. Gregory told us the next day that the movie was probably the reason we all fell asleep but I think it was the fact that it had been a long, long week for most of us (I know it was for me because I hadn't slept since last Wednesday). I know Jon and I were tired because we stayed up talking until 5am that Saturday morning about a lot of things and it's one of those conversations that we all need. Plus, he's my best buddy so the convos are always funny, serious, deep, important all at the same time :)
So we just chilled at the Dieks on Sunday and watched a breathing workout video that had me laughing pretty hard. We also got Kim to belly dance for us (good thing I had Shakira's Spanish Cd with me :)) and that made Jon laugh and we all did the "tip of the hat" towards Kim. I love her so much, and is an integral part of the nerrdy crew :) Aaron, Jon, James, and I decided to play h-o-r-s-e outside and according to the girls we provided them with a lot of laughs. They could see us through the living room window and since we were trying all these difficult shots so we could eliminate each other we did some pretty silly stuff. James had the shot of the day with a deep shot behind Aaron's car while standing on top of a rock...nothin' but net. *I tip my hat* :) I ended up winning the game only because I got luckier than James but I have to say that was the most fun game of h-o-r-s-e I had ever played. Good times, good times.
After hanging out most of the afternoon at the Dieks we all said our goodbyes and left towards Chicago to pick up our stuff and head out to Iowa. Halfway to Chicago I start worrying about where I left my keys and so we search the car and the bags but I couldn't find them. So we turn around and head back to the Diekmeier's and start looking again and then I head out to the car to search through the bags again. It wasn't in mine and it wasn't in Ann's bag but I hadn't thoroughly searched Kim's bag since it had....girl stuff that I don't think she'd be comfortable having me look through it, lol. So I decided to look through it and found my keys in the bottom of her bag and Ann and I proceeded to celebrate saying *so seductive* :P So back to Chicago we went and got all our things and said goodbye to Jon and Mrs. Gregory and thanked them for everything. A wonderful, amazing, fun, much needed weekend is my description of everything. Hopefully Jon and I will be traveling to L4T and LYC together if things work out that way and who knows what will happen from there.
So on the way back I decided that even though it's my car I will not drive since I needed to study so Ann drove the first leg and Kim drove the last half as I attempted to study for my US Foreign Policy final that was on Monday at noon and let's just say that I wasn't able to read much. I kinda knew the material but felt that I needed to read everything since I didn't know the format for the test but I was also thinking of the History test I had that same day at 9:45.
Yes, two tests back to back and I hadn't done much studying for any of them. I go to class, I participate, I take good notes so I'm always thinking that will get me through. So I got back to Ames at about 1am and then I started reading till 2 and slept for maybe 3 hours and then hit my lecture notes for history hard. I had 16 lectures to go through along with understanding the material of a book I hadn't read plus not forgetting the stuff I read for Foreign Policy that was right after the History final.
Mayhem I tell you, but my History professor was really nice and actually offered extra time to finish the essay for the test but I told him I had a test right after his and he was really really nice. He is probably the best professor I've had in college and he actually offered me to come back later during the day and finish the essay because he didn't want me to rush while writing. I had come in 15 minutes late but I told him I felt confident enough about it and thanked him for everything and for being a great instructor. I told him I wish I could have been more detailed on some of my I.D. answers but I told him that it's been a tough semester and I had been traveling during the weekend. He said that he appreciated my participation and observations I made in class about the readings we were assigned and that I was an exceptional student. I was like, "Wow" and I thanked him for his kind words and offered me help in talking about career opportunities when classes resume and I will definitely take him up on that :) Then I went to my Foreign Policy test and I hope I did well enough on it to finish up with an A. I got my paper back which I had turned in late because of the whole miscommunication of assignments (I posted earlier about it) and I got an A- on my paper!!! Woo hoo!! I thanked God for allowing me to do well on that paper and the prof commented that it was an "excellent paper, although I have to make cite my sources correctly." I never understand what profs mean by that because every prof has their own way of explaining things but I was glad the paper was a good one and that I received a good grade for it. Glory be to God for that because I really don't think I did anything special.
Well I've procrastinated enough on the 2 papers I have due tomorrow by noon so I will proceed to start them and do a decent job on them. Here's to a long night of writing :S

Awesomistic weekend...beginning of the week of Hades

2005-05-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

Ok so it has been a while since I posted on my blog and I have to apologize for it. I wanted to spend the end of Unleavened Bread up in Chicago with Jon and his mother because it would be a while (maybe until July) until I would see them in the summer because I'm going to spend it in Florida. So Ann, Kim, and I decided to visit them this past weekend and we left on Friday afternoon. I had 2 finals that I had to study for on Monday but I thought that there was nothing that was going to keep me from seeing Jon and I thought of it as a risk worth taking. The semester has really been a blur for the last half of it so I really didn't worry too much about not being able to really study until I got back Sunday. I think I had enough good grades to pull it off.
Anyways, I took my books just to make the effort to maybe study and met Ann and Kim in Newton, IA so that we could all leave in my car. The trip went well, smooth, and there was good weather and I know we all appreciated that because it makes the trip so much better. We talked quite a bit, sang along with Destiny's Child, Aaliyah, Alicia Keys, J-LO, Will Smith, Ciara...we had all the girly music going on and I knew the words to all the songs I think. Plus I think I scarred Ann and Kim with some of my Carlton-like/white boy/nerrdy moves but they laughed a lot and we had a great time on the way up.
I really can't describe the feelings I had when we got to Jon's house because the last time we were there it was right a day before 3/12. I was so happy to see Jon and his mother again, especially to see Mrs. Gregory walking around and being such a living inspiration. Now that I write this it's such a surreal feeling that comes upon me because I still have problems coping with it and I can't imagine how they're able to. This is why I admire them so much because they seem to be able to handle life and put a smile on when things are difficult. It was a weekend I wouldn't have traded for anything in the world because I knew we all wanted to see each other and this Feast of Unleavened Bread was something we all needed at this particular time.
Sabbath services were awesome with great sermons and a great lunch in between. We had services in a very nice fancy place and Jon and I decided to bust out the pinstripe suits :) Mr. and Mrs. Millich were up there for services so it was great to see them and talk to them for a while since I won't be seeing them for a couple of months at least with my whole Florida experience.
So after services Jon, Ann, Kim, me, Mike and Aaron Diekmeier, and James Scott all decided to go to Dairy Queen because it apparently is the tradition up in the Milwaukee area. Not a bad tradition at all if you ask me :) So we all caravaned to Dairy Queen's and talked for quite a while and cracked some more nerrdy jokes and gave each other a "tip of the hat". It was the best Dairy Queen ever because they had Linkin Park's Meteora playing and then proceeded to play Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits while we were there. Classics playing during the whole time, something that I can't complain with.
After Dairy Queen everybody except the Diekmeier boys went to Jon's house so we could change from our Church clothes into our "poker clothes" for the traditional Milwaukee Saturday night poker event. So off we went and proceeded to have an awesome night of poker, beer, pizza :) It was the first time I ever played with real money and we had a $10 buy-in with about 13 or 15 people. There were two tables with Texas Hold 'Em going on and I had such a blast. We called James Scott "The Jackal" since he was bluffing his way all the way to be bank basically and it was his first time doing this. It was crazy!!! I think we ended up playing until 2 am and we decided to cash out and James and Jon basically split most of the pot by themselves with about $70 each, I got $24, and I think Mike Deikmeier ended with $15 or so. It was a successful first poker night if you ask me...I'm definitely doing it again soon and making it a tradition :)
So this is pretty long already...I will continue to write later on and say what went on after poker night because after the party, it's the afterparty!!! :) You know what I'm sayyying????!! ;)

So seductive...

2005-04-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Your Taste in Music:

90's Alternative: High Influence

Classic Rock: High Influence

Hip Hop: High Influence

Old School Hip Hop: High Influence

R&B: High Influence

80's Rock: Medium Influence

90's Hip Hop: Medium Influence

90's Pop: Medium Influence

90's R&B: Medium Influence

Alternative Rock: Medium Influence

90's Rock: Low Influence

Adult Alternative: Low Influence

Gangsta Rap: Low Influence

Hair Bands: Low Influence

Progressive Rock: Low Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

George W. Bush II??? I think so :)

2005-04-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

You Are a Religious Republican

You make up the conservative, Christian, dedicated core of the Republican Party.

You believe it's important for religious people to stand up for their beliefs in politics.

And for you, this means voting your conscience - which almost always means voting Republican.

Your pet causes include the sanctity of life, school vouchers, and prayer in school.

What political persuasion are you?

Best.Sping.Holy.Days.Ever. :)

2005-04-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

WOW! I knew that the spring Holy Days were going to be a great thing after a couple of difficult months in every sense of the word. It was my first Passover and I knew it was going to be a solemn and somber occassion but I didn't think of how it would hit me until it actually happened. I started to really understand and feel Christ's sacrifice when the bread was being broken. I could then sense exactly the body of Christ being broken through the beating He took when he was betrayed. I was nervous too about the footwashing and all but it went well, I made sure my toenails were clipped ;)
So we had services where we normally have them in Des Moines and it was awesome. We got a special rate to stay Saturday night so most of us did and had Night To Be Much Observed at sunset in the room we meet in. Kim visited for the weekend with her two sisters and we had some good conversation all weekend. We had about 3 hours in between the end of services and beginning of NTBMO so Ann, Kim, and I did a beer run for the weekend and then just talked and chilled until 8ish :) The dinner was awesome as all Church potlucks are and I must say that I stuffed myself with the best food that loving and caring hands can make :) I ate so much that I couldn't eat sweet unleavened cake afterwards but it was all good, YAY for Church potlucks!!! We then proceeded to change into swim trunks so that we could enjoy the jacuzzi. I especially was going to treat myself to it because I had a stressful week and wanted to relax for the weekend and it was wonderful.
I cannot complain about the weekend and the beginning of God's Holy Day calendar. First Passover experience, great NTBMO dinner and time spent with brethren, great girl and wonderful conversations with the girl...Life is good and I knew that the Holy Days would make things better (not only for me but for other people). This is the last week of classes and then finals week and I would be done for about 3 months!!! YEAH!!! You know that the Truth is how we do! :)

Gentlemen, goodnight...Ladies, good morning :)

2005-04-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

Your Seduction Style: The Natural

You don't really try to seduce people... it just seems to happen.
Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people.
You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious - a hard combo to find!
People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.

What Is Your Seduction Style?

Hmmm, I think this would describe me well :)

2005-04-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

Your Love Style is Storge

For you, love and friendship are almost the same thing

And your love tends to be the enduring, long lasting kind

(You've been known to still have connections with exes)

But sometimes your love is not the most passionate

Leap before you look, and you'll find that fire you crave

What's Your Love Style?

Thank you to the presence of Metallica :)

2005-04-20T02:05:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing I've got Metallica in my laptop because it's what's keeping me awake as I try to make up for the biggest blunder I could have ever committed in my collegiate career. I seriously felt like I must have stepped into Annette's shoes or something like that when I arrived in class and saw all those stacks of papers being piled up on the profs desk and I had completely forgotten about it because of all the other papers and debates that I was doing. I guess if anything I now know what it is like to feel like my favorite Camerican :) Let's just say that I don't know how you do it girl but hopefully you'll be able to counsel me about this and what steps can be done to reverse it ;) You know I love you and I'm playin' but seriously, I don't think I've listened to this much Metallica in a short amount of time as I have this morning :) I gotta say, if they ever get back to sounding like they did on The Black Album and their old stuff, I'll definitely get back to being hardcore Metallica fan. Oh well, I've got almost 2 pages done so I've got a minimum of 3 more to go and I think it might turn out well. I just hope she accepts it.

In the words of Larry the Cableguy, "GET 'ER DUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!" :)

Blunder of the most serious consequences!!! AHHHH!

2005-04-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Ok so basically today I have had the biggest scare of my collegiate academic career. I've known for a while that I have 3 papers due around the same time frame. I have two papers due that are with the same professor because I take U.S. Foreign Policy along with U.S. Latino Politics with her. There's another paper for another class which is about Marxist Rebellions and Revolutions. I know they are all due around the same time, especially the ones that are with the same prof. So I went to Omaha for the weekend and started preparing for this North Korean debate which I was assigned to (we were the first group and had the least time to prepare for it) and I was all worried about that and what my talking points were going to be that I completely ignored what the syllabus said. I got all dressed up with a dress shirt and tie, nice slacks and shoes for the debate, and to my surprise a bunch of people are turning in their papers. I ask around to figure out what was going on and they told me that the paper was due today and I think I started thinking some things that I can't repeat here. I could not believe that of all the days the paper had to be due it was due the day I was preparing for my debate and completely didn't even know when it was supposed to be turned in. I have basically kissed my A in the class goodbye because I have reviewed the syllabus and it says that "late submittels will suffer a grade penalty and might not be accepted." This is pathetic I tell you, I busted my butt the first part of the semester to start off with all A's in all my classes and now because of confusion/procrastination/different classes with same prof with research papers involved I am now done for the semester. Kiss the 4.0 goodbye and possibly the 3.5 because of this stupidity in my part. This is exactly what I didn't need but I guess I'll write something up tonight with the partner I can't work with because she sprained her ankle and we haven't communicated at all and I don't even know if my paper will be accepted. Here's to a long night...I think ordering pizza is in the order :) (I can always find a positive in something)

Not too bad of a weekend

2005-04-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

Back from a awesome weekend in Omaha. I must say that it was great that I went off on a spur of the moment type of thing and decided Friday afternoon to go and visit Kim in Omaha and surprise her. Needless to say, I think I achieved my goal of surprising by showing up in front of the apartment building and buzzing the doorbell and seeing her reaction once she saw me. Her exact words were, "you're terrible for telling me you weren't going to make it and then you did. I'm glad you're here." Yeah, I misled her into thinking I wasn't going to be able to make it because I left late and that I just couldn't but it was me just trying to buy time until I could get there in time :)
So we cooked some pasta on Friday night, her sister Lindsey, her kids, and her husband did a surprise visit and I got to meet them all. I liked meeting the gooey kids because I have an affinity towards the goo (yes I know I'm weird) and they were good kids. I think we watched "The Incredibles" about 5 times in a 2 day span but that movie is so awesome that there's no way I can stop liking it. Sabbath was wonderful because I got to hear the same sermon I heard before "Are You Prepared For Passover" by Mr. Meredith and I got a lot out of it. I took more notes the second time around than I did the first time and then had a great Sabbath dinner (yay for Friday night's leftovers!) and Kim went to see a movie. After much delay I was FINALLY able to see the movie that describes the story of me and Jon's life: HITCH. It was incredibly, wonderfully, romantic comedy that was just the perfect date movie. Watching Will Smith back on the big screen in a comedy was awesome because I've been watching a lot of Fresh Prince lately on Nick At Nite and I still remember all the funny jokes about Carton's height and lack of game and the fat jokes directed at Uncle Phil. Ahhhh, it's great to reminisce about the 90s and how it shaped my life :)
I made it back safely to Ames last night and went to classes this morning. Not too bad of a way to start off another week and I think the Omaha weekend was a much needed thing for me. Only 2 more weeks of class left and then finals week and I should be done for the semester with no looking back. I still don't know what my summer plans are exactly but I hope I am able to know sometime soon. I'm just wanting to get it done as soon as possible because it has been a difficult semester for obvious reasons and I just haven't been able to concentrate too much but school will hopefully end on a high note. Let's see how it all works out.
Last night on the way back from Omaha I called Jon and we were able to talk for about an hour. It was a good conversation and we were making some plans about visiting Milwaukee for the end of Unleavened Bread, making some summer plans for L4T and LYC, and just catching up on some other aspects of our lives. Unfortunately Jon is going to be heading off to France for the Feast this year so sadly most of us won't be able to hang with Jonny G this year at FOT but he said we should definitely do it next year so that the whole crew can hang out together. Under these circumstances I decided that since it's a late Feast this year I was thinking of maybe warm weather, nearby beach vecinity for this Feast.
So I was talking to someone in the Omaha congregation who has family in Florida and was telling me how Clearwater is about 35 minutes away from Tampa. This flipped the switch in my brain and I started thinking about how I haven't been to Busch Gardens since summer of 1995 and how awesome it would be to be able to fill up an amusement park with a bunch of church people and ride rollercoasters, run around, and have a blast with the whole churchy crew. So I'm throwing the idea out right now about maybe possibly getting the majority of us out to the same Feast site to keep the "unity" created after 3/12. I use the quotation marks here because I just feel that apparently something is missing in that regard. I know I don't have my own agenda, I'm willing to go where most everyone is going. I just hope that we're able to compromise into a location where most of us can be together. I hope we can do something together no matter where the location is. Let's try to make it happen. Anyways, that's all for now.

Ok so not everything can be perfect

2005-04-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, two post about 5 hours apart so I'm doing pretty good today :) Well Randy Johnson decided to pitch like a 42 year-old bum instead of the stud he usually is and the Yankees lost tonight. I was only able to watch the first 5 innings or so up to 7:45 because I had this public lecture that I could attend for extra credit for not one but TWO classes :) You know I have to take advantage of things like that plus it was going to be about "The Soviet Union Dissolved...Maybe Not." I must say that it was pretty interesting hearing from someone who had visited the Soviet Union before, has visited Russia and the surrounding states and one of his books was actually used as a textbook for my post-Soviet politics class last spring. I thought that was so cool and now I wish I actually read the book last spring when I could have, hehehe.

Well the guest lecturer's name was Dr. Kotkin and he spoke for about 45 minutes and was quite humorous during his talk. He spoke on the fact that even though the Soviet Union dissolved there was still a very strong sense of "sovietism" and "sovietness" in the republics that emerged from it. Even though there was supposed to be profound change things are still very much the same in how those countries run. It was interesting nonetheless and I liked hearing what he was saying.

Well I guess it was an ok day but the Yanks lost 8-5 because A-Rod is sucking big time in run-producing opportunities. Honestly A-Rod, you're making about $25 million a year and you're starting off just as bad as last year and you're choking big time against the Yankees arch-rivals and not really earning your keep. Blah to him and to Randy Johnson tonight for basically giving the game to the Red Sox tonight. Oh well, the next time they play is around Memorial Day weekend so there's calm and rest now. Oh and what is up with the stupid Red Sox fan took a swipe at Gary Sheffield? Stupidity once again exemplified tonight with a stupid fan. Anyways, we'll be waiting for them at the "House That Ruth Built" :)

Yankees, women, and macs

2005-04-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, I really should have posted yesterday since it was a better day than usual. The reason the day was better than usual was because the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5-2 last night. It isn't the fact that the Yankees beat the Red Sox that made it a good day but it was the fact that they beat Curt Schilling in his first start of the season. Plus the Yankees finally seemed like they brought their bats for this season and everybody (except A-Rod) got a hit and shellackled Schilling into an early night. They play again tonight (I'm watching it as I post) and they just blew the first call of the game with a non-tag out. I mean, seriously the first baseman didn't even apply the tag on Womack as he was running to first base and they still called him out. I mean, the throw was off and the tag didn't even occur yet the umpire is blind enough to call him out. Blah, I hate this all Red Sox hurrah about them finally winning the World Series and everybody jumping on their bandwagon. It's pathetic and they get help from the umpires and they have the most pathetic and whiny fans in the history of sports. I'm tired of hearing about the Red Sox, their fans, their futility, their moronic lifestyles, their bad hairdos...that was last year and now it's 2005 and it's a new season. Let's get on with it.

So fantasy baseball is going well for me so far. I have to say that I got pretty lucky with the type of players I was able to get. I mean, I completely rearranged the pre-draft order because I didn't like how some players were rated and I went with who I knew could produce. I didn't even participate in the draft but I got 3 of the top 10 pitchers in the league and a bunch of great hitters and I have flexibility for trading and maybe improving a bit. I'm 6-3-1 right now and I'm leading 6-3 right now after trailing 8-0 on Monday (I love it when my guys destroy the competition) and it should get better with my pitchers improving and such. Not too bad and hopefully it'll continue. I'm up for putting some money on it but I don't know if everybody else would follow along. :)

So yesterday I had to meet with my partner for my Latino Politics paper which is focusing on Puerto Rican status and we decided to got to the computer lab in the tech center rather than the campus library. I didn't think twice about it when I saw her in front of the library and suggested to go there but she told me later on why she changed her mind. Apparently some freaky guy was looking all weird at her and staring at her and being the girl that she is she didn't want to be there anymore and waited for me in front of the library instead of inside of it. So we get to Durham (it's like where you get help with all the techie stuff) and used the computer lab there to do some research and I saw that there were Macs :( I was not very happy about the fact that we had to use Macs because they are the most annoying and complicated piece of technology that exists today. I have to agree with Summer's opinion on 'em and I would like to add some more thoughts of my own on them.

I was talking to Annette last night and I came up with something I believe is revolutionary. I was telling her this story about the Macs and I proceeded to say this: "Women are like Macs. They're complicated, you can't understand them, and they take forever to get going." Yes I know it's a horrible thing to say (especially the last part) but I thought it was something funny to go and say :) I immediately told her it was a classic that was going in my blog and I hope you guys are able to appreciate it as much as we both did :) Anyways, I hope I don't get massacred by the ladies for my quote but I hope it'll be ok in the end. All in good jest. Now back to the game and to a Yankee victory :)

One month today

2005-04-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here I am posting again for the first time since Friday and I have to say that my mood, feelings, emotions, and a lot of my thoughts have changed. If you guys have read Ann's blog then you'd see that we had a great time on the Sabbath during the fast and afterwards by eating at Applebee's and watching "Fever Pitch" in the movie theater. The fascinating part about it is that as a diehard Yankee fan I forsook my anti-Red Sox feelings because Ann was in the mood to watch a romantic comedy and you can't say no to that :) (I love you Ann :)) It was a good movie, it made me laugh quite a bit except at the end when they showed highlights of the "Greatest Choke Job in the History of Sports" courtesy of the Yankees last year in the 2004 ALCS. Oh well, I just put my head on Ann's shoulder and she consoled me during those scenes. I told her how I had planned to raise my own kids teaching them about the "Curse of the Bambino" and how the Yankees always, ALWAYS had the Red Sox's number and they were going to continue breaking Boston fans' hearts year after year. Thanks to the Yankees last year that is no longer the case but there are more important things to talk about.

It is one month today. It is one month since the Milwaukee shootings occurred today and I haven't been able to think about anything else. One month since most of our lives were changed because Satan decided to declare outfront war on the Church of God. It hasn't been the easiest time since that black Sabbath with so many emotions, so many different thoughts, and so many feelings swirling inside of me as I have tried to cope with it. You all probably know the story if you've read Annette's blog or if I've talked to you about it because certain things in our lives changed in order for a great friend and person like Jon to be protected. I know it because all the plans, ideas, and thoughts that I had at the end of January 2005 were changed, put away, destroyed (insert any word you'd like) leading to a very emotional rollercoaster for the ensuing months (not all bad, not all good either). I was planning on giving a very big commitment to the girl I was dating (our one-year anniversary was about to happen on my birthday February 8th) with a nice asortment of gifts. Jewelry was included, along with the dozen roses, the card, the whole deal because it was important to me and she was important to me. Well those plans went out the window for reasons I don't want to put up in here and because I could type it for hours and it just brings pain to my heart. For some reason something I worked on for a year didn't work out and I couldn't understand then why it happened but after March 12th I found a rational explanation. Since the plans didn't pan I actually started committing a bit more to school (I started off with A's in all my classes), but more importantly I started talking to more of my friends that I hadn't kept up with all that well during the previous year because I was dating. I talked longer and more often with Jon, Jeremy, and I started talking to my good friend Annette who I hadn't talked to for about a year. You could say she was counseling me throughout the post-breakup period and it was great to "regain" a friend again. For the ensuing weeks I talked a whole lot more to all my friends and Annette came up with the brilliant idea of doing a spring break road trip up to Canada. I had never been up north and I had nothing going on for spring break other than starving all week so I talked to Ann and Jon and they were up for it as long as long as Ann could take a couple of days off from school (our spring break wasn't the same week) and Jon needed to be able to get off from work those days. Basically everything happened at the last minute because Ann took charge of the whole trip with planning and Jon's boss rearranged the entire schedule so that he could be able to take those days off. Even Adam was able to come last minute and be there in Canada with us. Then...the world changed and what I thought was incomprehensible now made sense. The only reason I can think of as to why something didn't work out for me was the fact that it meant that God was using all of our lives for something greater than we can think of. Then the time in Milwaukee served as a time of healing because of all the people there that I hadn't seen in a long time and it just served as proof that the Church is a close-knit family that will support each other during these times. I think 1 Corinthians 12:26 put it perfectly, "And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."

That's a little synopsis of an endless list of events from the past couple of months and how I guess I'm affected. The weekend was awesome up to the point where I was driving back to my dorm Saturday night and made the mistake of answering my phone. It seemed like the weekend of hades and if I was feeling emotionally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually drained before even more so now. It's as if for some reason some people just don't want to understand exactly what I've always felt and what type of person I am. I know I am not a saint, not by any means because I know my closet is full of skeletons and I'm still paying the consequences of my decisions to this day but I try and continue to try to improve. I was reading Summer's blog from today and I have to agree that the Bible Study area is probably the one area of my life where I need to emphasize more on. School, personal problems, and the skeletons take up so much time and drain my emotions to the point where I feel I can't deal with all of it. I'm known to shun myself from the world at times like these and I'm trying my hardest not to. There's a reason why my blog is titled the way it is. That Green Day song is basically the story of my life and it basically summarizes what my life has been about and what it is right now. School's about to finish in about 3 weeks and I intend to exile myself in Florida this summer and regroup. It's obviously not working out for me in the Midwest, too much drama, too much stuff I can't control. I've only got one more year of school left and I hope to "get 'er dunnnnn" as soon as I can. I'm planning on doing L4T and LYC, hopefully by road trippin' with Jon to get there by flying in to Chicago. Let's see how that works out though, because it would provide the most fun and best way to spend 3 weeks of my summer. We all need to heal some way and I just don't think that spending my summer in D.C. was the way to go after all this.

Nice to see that I just went on a tangent that probably makes no sense. I always have the belief that somehow writing what my feelings are would help. I've yet to discover if that actually works after 4 years of trying.

Here's to a solemn Sabbath and a helpful fast

2005-04-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well after another undesirable week of school I am very glad that the Sabbath is here. It's been a somewhat tiring and not really exciting week so the fact that it's over and it means I'll be done in 4 weeks makes me very, very happy. Well for those who are interested the midterm wasn't too bad although I wish I would have studied more than what I did. It was an essay exam and it was mostly based on this book that I was supposed to have read the past couple of weeks. Actually we were supposed to have been reading it over spring break and the ensuing weeks of class but obviously things changed and it took me a while to get back "into the swing of things." It's a history class that is based on science, technology, and public culture in Europe 1500s-present and it's pretty cool actually. The professor is awesome and makes sure that we've got as much information on the handouts he gives us during the class and is genuinely a nice guy. He's even almost extra careful and goes completely out of his way to help us out. Needless to say, I wish more of my professors were like that. He's getting the best evaluation from me whenever we have to fill out those teacher evaluations at the end of the semester.

Well the Sabbath is here and it's an important one with the fast that we are doing. It's something that I think we all agree has to be done because of the recent events that happened and the need for us to lean on God during these trying times. I still don't understand why such an event had to happen and why certain things in my life and in the lives of my closest friends the way they did. So many little pieces moved around so that our lives and things changing completely right before the events in Milwaukee happened and that probably brings more confusion to my already stressed out and confused Puerto Rican mind. I think Annette posted like the short story of how things played out in her blog (it's in the March archives I think) and to see how certain things worked out it's perplexing. Why me, why us, why did all this happen the way it did are probably the things that go through my mind the most along with all the other confusing stuff that happens in my every day life. Let's just say that there is never a dull moment in this life of mine and I'm interested to see what God has in store. Like Annette said in her blog the other day, so many things were being planned and the same way that God made things happen beforehand, He's changed plans again afterwards and I'm left to think a lot during the day. Yeah, it's not good when I'm thinking all day because it just leaves me in this state of confusion, perplexion, sadness at times, loneliness....oh well though, it's just something where i guess I try to brush it off and do my best. I am human though and it's hard to deal with the emotions of the situation at hand. This fast though will be good for me and for all of us in the Church as we strive to draw close to God and have Him heal the wounds and have us learn the lessons He wants us to learn from this. It's not easy to deal with all of this but if we ask more of His Holy Spirit and we strive to do what's right in our lives He'll be there to answer our questions and provide us with what we need.

Anyways, that's enough for my "does not make any sense blog" which I decided to do at 1am. That's probably a little insight as to why I may have named my blog after a Green Day (which by the way is an incredible song). I'm not the eternally depressed individual who just listens to the sad songs, I just think their song kinda describes my life a little bit. I've been blessed though beyond anything I ever deserve. I should focus more on that than everthing else that crumbles around me. Hmmm, if I only actually tried to do that more I think I'd be ok.

A good song to wake up to

2005-04-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

So this is the song that played on my radio alarm at very early this morning (somewhere between 4-6 since I had to study for my midterm :S). It's a Staind classic and I hadn't heard it in a while and I thought it was appropiate to a lot of the things I've gone through in my life and what has gone on in the past couple of months. I thought you all might appreciate it (especially for the rock fans out there) and it's one of the few times that I actually wake up to a good top 40 song on the radio :)

"So Far Away"

This is my life

its not what it was before

all these feelings i've shared

and these are my dreams

that i'd never lived before

somebody shake me'cause i

i must be sleeping

[chorus]

now that we're here,

it's so far away

all the struggle we thought was in vain

all the mistakes,

one life contained

they all finally start to go away

now that we're here its so far away

and i feel like i can face the day

i can forgive

and i'm not ashamed to be the person that i am today

these are my words

that i've never said before

i think i'm doing okay

and this is the smile

that i've never shown before

somebody shake me 'cause i

i must be sleeping

[chorus]

i'm so afraid of waking

please don't shake me

afraid of waking

please don't shake me

[chorus]

So far a good day...

2005-04-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

In typical Iowa fashion, it's freakishly cold today after a couple of days of nice warm weather. You can go from wearing shorts one day to actually having to wear a hoody and jeans to keep warm. Oh well, enough of my cold weather banter.

It's been a good day so far for me. I got caught up reading Proverbs again after falling behind and falling asleep :) I get frustrated when that happens, at the same time I feel like my life can turn into just reading, reading, reading (ranging from school, school, school). You can tell that I am not a big fan of school but it's just that I don't believe in how the education system works in the US. In other news God continues to do SO MANY things for me even when I know I do not deserve it. I received a letter from Financial Aid and it said that I received another scholarship for Fall and Spring for my last academic year. I don't know if I had it before but it's $2,500 for each semester so it seems like I won't have to take out too many loans for next year for the third year in a row. For all my friends out there, I am living proof that God does remember our prayers and He WILL handle and take care of our needs. It's the second time in the past 2 months that financial aid notifies me of such good news and I appreciate the extra money (it's what allowed me to afford the trip to Canada, tuning up my car, gas, etc) and it's getting me by well so far.

I got a package today in the mail from my mom with our favorite type of bread!!! Yes, yes I got 3 boxes of Matzos along with a card from my parents congratulating me on baptism, my beloved 100th anniversary Yankee cap, the best chocolate in the world (Yay for Nutella right Annette? :)), and a cool reversible belt (it's brown and black and it's the same one Adam bought in Milwaukee and I was thinking of getting. Moms are great in knowing the needs of their children :)). So my mom sent me different types of Matzos even though I've told her for the past 15+ years that I like the plain ol' Matzos the best. I don't care too much for the grape, egg, and different flavored kind...I like them crispy and plain but I guess she's trying to get me to broaden my horizons. Oh well, I guess I'll give them a shot this year and see if they are any good.

Hooray for a great day so far!!! It obviously hasn't sunk in yet that I'll probably have to stay up all night studying for my History class which focuses on science, technology, and public culture in Europe. The test is focusing on the impact of totalitarian regimes on science in the 20th century (specifically Nazi Germany and Stalin Russia). Oh the joy of an all-nighter :) (this is where Jon would insert a Camerican joke that only the nerrdy crew would understand :)) Awesome day so far, hopefully I'll be able to post again later tonight

Another day on the boulevard :)

2005-04-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

There isn't much I can say about today, other than the fact that it was really, really hot last night when I went to bed. Apparently they haven't turned on the A/C in the building so there isn't any cool air coming from the big ol' block on the wall. There isn't much of a breeze coming through the window so basically I'm left to not moving much at all in my room and I'm still sweating bullets. Normally I would not mind it if I was working out like a madman in my room but this is happening after I take a shower and sit down to do some surfing or chattin'. It's pathetic and for some reason it makes me stressed and a little annoyed when I'm sweating for no reason.

In other news I almost shaved my head off, it was getting long and I think I left a total of .5 inches of length of hair on the top of my head. I feel so refreshed now, plus my Yankee cap should fit better now that I got rid of the puffy hair I had going. Speaking of the Yankees, they were playing the Red Sox today in the final game of the opening series of the season. The Yankees, dubbed as the "Evil Empire", were on the verge of completing a three game sweep and begin the early season bragging rights against the annoying Red Sox and proceeded to blow the game. The Yankees took a 3-2 lead into the ninth after scoring the go-ahead run in the 8th and having the entire Yankee Nation, like me, in shock when Derek Jeter took a blow to the head. Seriously, the pitch went straight to his head and you could hear the impact on the helmet and then Jeter fell down but stood back up and went to first base. Needless to say it was a sigh of relief because it was a scary thing to watch. Anyways, the Yanks score on Sheffield's sacrifice fly and head to the 9th with a 3-2 lead and Mariano "The Hand of God" Rivera coming in with "Enter Sandman" playing in Yankee Stadium or "The House that Ruth Built."

So in comes Rivera and he's had some troubles with the Red Sox recently (because they play each other a stinking 26 times each year, it's crazy...they shouldn't play each other that often) and he blew yesterday's save to boot but Jeter was there to save the day. So Rivera walks the first batter, allows a 2 base hits, gets a strike out, and has the bases loaded with Manny Ramirez at the plate. He has the defense playing the double play so we can all go home and start bragging about Yankees mystique again. So Ramirez hits the perfect groundball to A-Rod so that a double play can be turned and end the game but it doesn't exactly happen that way. A-Rod proceeds to boot the groundball and isn't able to even get one out!!! A run scores, and there's no outs because of it...I was so incredibly ticked off because that's been the story behind the "fall of Rivera." Everyone blames him for losing velocity because he's getting older but he's still getting people out. The past couple of years the stinkin' Yankees defense doesn't do its job on a routine groundball (like A-Rod today) or on a fly ball and then what shows up on the record is that Rivera blew the save and is losing his skill. You know what? If you make $25 million a year and you can't handle a stinking ground ball to turn a double play to end the game and sweep the Yankees' most hated rival then you should be to blame. Yeah, after A-Rod booted the groundball the floodgates opened and the Sox ended up winning 7-3 I think. Rivera gets booed and all those years of getting big save after big save is forgotten in an instant because he blew his first 2 saves of this season against Boston. Yeah Rivera didn't pitch that well but in spite of not having his best stuff he put the Yankees in position to win the game if A-Rod converts the double play. Instead they don't even get an out and a good guy like Rivera gets a bunch of people on his case for not having his defense do its thing. I really feel for Mariano because he's one of the few nice guys in baseball and he's incredibly religious and you can see he's God-fearing. He plans to become a minister when he retires from baseball and heads back to Panama and I just hope that I'm able to see him play one day before he does retire.

Wow, so I basically described my afternoon which consisted of watching the game, thinking about the results for a while, and then passing out as I tried to read Proverbs :) I'll make up for it later tonight hopefully. As you can see, I'm a big sports fanatic and I love the Yankees.

2005-04-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

LYC CI 2003