Post 17: I Got Sidetracked...

One of the things I hoped to achieve during this winter break was to be productive. I like to have a structured day wherein I would have specific periods of time dedicated to something. Sort of like how school had those 40-minute periods for each class. On my private wiki I've developed for myself a master schedule that accounts for typical deviations from a normal day. I have three "classes" if you will on there: Devotional, which is when I do my Bible studying; Programming, when I teach myself some programming language (currently PHP); and Creative Writing, when I let my creative side run. The Devotional period lasted a half hour while the other two were an hour long.

I was satisfied with this and started going with it. My first task in Programming was to complete my knowledge of JavaScript, which I did by learning about the many properties and methods for various object types. I also spent a day learning some basic and not-so-basic SQL, which is used to play with databases. Now I'm slowly crawling through PHP, which is used to put things on a Web page before the user sees it. In Creative Writing I completed the first chapter of "After Adults", a sort of post-apocalyptic series. Check it out at http://afteradults.blogspot.com. Then I moved on to a "Ben 10" fan-fiction that's been in my head for a long time.

Yet somehow, I fell out of the schedule after a little over a week. This seems to happen to me a lot. Without some external source giving me a schedule, like they did in school, I just can't seem to stay in a self-imposed routine for more than a week. In this case, I believe I know why. I got writer's block and decided, "I'll take a couple days off to refresh myself, then come back and continue." It's been six days now and I haven't gone back to it. I also ran into a bunch of things in PHP that I couldn't wrap my brain around. Instead of letting those slow me down I figured I'd come back to those when I was done going through the rest of the methods. I'm learning about the various commands that PHP has for arrays (arrays are difficult for me to explain in layman's terms - Google it) and well, compared to JavaScript, there are a lot. So many that it's getting monotonous for me to write each one down and learn it when I can't see myself ever being done.

My devotional period has not disappeared, though. It's of vital importance for me to study my Bible and I just about always spend a half hour daily on it.

With the disappearance of these two periods from my schedule, distractions have very quickly set in. Right now my days are being absorbed by the mind crack that is called Minecraft. I'm even getting bored with that as well, yet I usually log in once a day or so in order to build some experiment. I also have a blog going with my adventures in that: http://mineventures.blogspot.com. (That's right, I have three active blogs. The fourth is hosted on Xanga but was only ever made for a school assignment.) Otherwise, I just feel bored. A lot.

So, I think it's time for that to be fixed. I've had enough time to relax, now is my time to get back on track. I don't like wasting days because I'm not guaranteed the next one and I have things I would like to accomplish in my life. Time to get going!

Of course, I certainly picked a heck of a time to kick myself in the rear. Spring semester of college starts in one week and now I need to start collecting textbooks. Last semester I made several mistakes. One was deciding to do all of my notes on loose-leaf paper and then put it all in a binder. Why was that a mistakes? Although I prefer to be organized, as clearly evidenced I don't do a good job of it in the long run. Eventually I started leaving papers with notes on them lying around and they got mingled with other papers and lost. Also, they were wide ruled, meaning the space between lines was the size that most paper appears to be. I prefer college ruled paper, because it gives me more lines to write on. Apparently, I don't write with very big letters. In fact, I can fit two lines of writing into the top and bottoms halves of a wide ruled paper by writing just slightly smaller. So this semester I'm stocked up on college ruled spiral notebooks. With these I will be able to keep my notes and my room tidy while cramming information in microscopic text. Anyway, to get the textbooks I'm not sure what I have to do. I may e-mail my advisor to see how to do this. I think I can just print a copy of my schedule and show the bookstore lady. She'll know what to do from there.

Any advice on how to prep myself for another four months of school?

Post 8: Less Shawn, More God

The past few days have been pretty intense, spiritually. New things are popping up (I just love all of this new stuff!) and I would like to share them.

For starters, I've come to find just how much of a sinner I still am. There are many problems that I have. I'm a complainer, selfish, glutton, and pervert to name a few. I expect myself to be able to act in a way that promotes God. I have the desire to be an excellent witness. And while my standards for myself aren't perfection (because I can never achieve that) or so I believe, whatever they are I still fall short of them.

I don't act godly because I'm trying to win God's favor. I have been in His favor for 2.5 years, starting the moment I agreed to make Jesus Christ (in Hebrew "Yeshua Messiah", which in English means "Jesus the Anointed One") the leader of my life and acknowledged what he did on the cross. I do these things out of a love and desire to be obedient to God's commands, and also because it is to my benefit.

Yet the problem I have had stems from the fact that I constantly rate how I am doing based upon that standard I have set for myself... and I always fail. The answer came on unintentionally. A friend of mine, whose blog can be found here, calls himself a Zen Christian. At the time, I didn't want to ask him about it directly as I didn't know how personal an explanation would have to be. I came across another blog, and this person had a creative solution: just BE Christian, and don't beat yourself up when you fail. Let the love of Jesus flow out through you.

I like this way of doing things. Then I wondered, "How can I bring my personality to match Jesus'?" See, at work, home and (eventually) school, I'm likely the closest thing that the lost ones around me will see to Jesus. If you remember a post from a while back, I mention my Myers-Briggs personality type: ISTJ. I'm organized, practical and factual. The disciple Thomas (aka the doubter) was ISTJ. Jesus on the other hand was not an ISTJ. It's hard to tell exactly what his type is, but based on observations from the Gospels it seems he is an -NF-, possibly INFP. (I guessed ENFJ.) My interests are probably not what Jesus would have liked. For instance, I play an interstellar combat game, Starfleet Commander, something Jesus wouldn't play. I want to go to college for computer science and am a sci-fi writer - two things unlike Jesus.

My conclusion was that my personality should not be a carbon copy of Christ's. God put in me these differences - a love for sci-fi, technological know-how, a desire to write - for the purpose of spreading the Gospel in whatever unique areas I may find myself in. The reconciliation of personalities comes in how I behave in these areas. The traits of Jesus - holiness, kindness, wisdom, patience, purity - these are the things that are to flow out of me.

Something else I wanted to happen was a greater amount of experiencing God. Faith is nice and I'm sure I have a good amount of it, but I don't want to coast on that all my life. I desire to see God act more in my life, do things that unmistakably point to him. I wrote down some ways:

• Miraculous events - always nice.
• Meditating on the Bible - understanding who God is by how he is recorded in the Bible.
• Worship - this can lead to more obvious, tangible experiences.
• "Hearing" God through thoughts - I have had situations where a thought has entered my mind that has such authority behind it that it can only have come from God.
• Conscience - that little voice in the back of your head is God prompting you.
• Feeling God's presence - not sure how this is done.
• Letting characteristics of God flow through you.
• Observing how God is working in the world and your life - coincidence? Maybe not.

In related, but different news, I am going to be heading up a Bible discussion group at the Christian youth center I attend, the Haven House. It'll be on alternating Thursdays, and it'll have prayer, inspirational real life stories and discussions on Bible topics. This works really well for me because I've always had a bit of a teacher streak in me, in the spiritual sense of the word. I'm good at analyzing things to find out what they are and then relaying that information to others. Now is my chance.

Sorry, I wrote this entry on two separate days. I may not have said everything I originally intended to. If so, then I'll just edit this post and add the info.