Post 32: Progress Report

I have a strange ability. Often when people set out to do things, to chase their dreams, they give up along the way. I'm not doing well on my New Years' Resolutions but with the things I mentioned in the previous post I'm actually doing really well! Here's a little update for you.

There's still about six months until I head off to university. I have decided that I'm going to Kansas State University. For good reason too: not only is it cheaper, I have something like over $6,000 in scholarships coming my way for my high grades and Phi Theta Kappa membership. A few days ago I spent the better part of my waking hours working on scholarships online, and hopefully I'll win one or two. In high school I applied for something like seven of them but didn't win any. Despite having insanely high grades and strong writing skills. Oh well. Still need to look into student loans. I figure I will go with the Sallie Mae company. Four of my five semesters in community college had 4.0 GPAs with an overall of 3.945.

A couple weeks after graduating I got my degree in the mail. I was so proud of it, I was telling everyone I got in contact with. It has a nice leather cover and the degree is laminated inside. Fifteen years of schooling have culminated in receiving that degree, and dangit I want to utilize it! I could contact the local employment agency to see what jobs, if any, are open around here. I'm hesitant to do that however, because I already have a job. Picking up two jobs, even if both are part time, would curtail a lot of my free time. Instead, I'm improving my Web design skills via volunteer work. I play a game called NationStates and lately I've been building the Web site for the group I am a member of. One of my weak points is graphic design but that's being improved with time.

Related to that, I'm still learning how to program in Java. I've finished reading the textbook I bought so now I'm just looking around and trying projects to improve my skills.

One of the things I was really concerned about the last time I posted was driving. I took the permit test and failed the first time. It's a series of 25 or so questions and you can get no more than 5 wrong otherwise you fail. I had 9 wrong the first time. A couple of them were kind of dumb mistakes but a couple others were questions worded very trickily. My second time, a week later, I passed having made only three mistakes. My official permit came in the mail a week or so later.

After that I had to find people to teach me to drive! I need 40 hours of daytime driving and 10 hours of nighttime driving. At first nobody was really willing to help. Then a month later I received like 3 or 4 offers. My first time driving was a Saturday after work. I discovered that driving isn't nearly as difficult as it may appear, but the mechanics are also slightly different from what I always assumed. I'm naturally a fast learner and this was no exception. At first I was nervous to get up to 20 mph but now I consider that slow! I've spent a lot of time on gravel roads and am itching to get on suburban streets and highways. Definitely looking forward to future driving. I want to put more work into turning, parking, and stopping.

In the field of faith, I have discovered Dr. William Lane Craig's Web site Reasonable Faith. It is a site devoted to Christian apologetics and rational arguments for the existence of God and Jesus. Not only have I learned a lot from it, I've also had my faith strengthened. To be honest, I do often get nervous when I approach areas where the arguments are strongly debated and put through the rigors, however in time I will muster the courage to read through those and understand both sides of the argument. My favorite and most convincing argument, to me, is the teleological argument, also known as the watchmaker theory, fine-tuning, or Intelligent Design. I hope to someday share what I've learned.

Post 29: Twenty: Start of a New Decade of Life

My twentieth birthday is upon us and I figured I would post about it. I'll present the chronological events first, then my thoughts on it.

The day before, August 2nd, I realized that I was turning 20 and began wondering what I wanted to do with the next decade of my life, but I'll elaborate on that later. The morning of my birthday was fairly normal. Work has been unusually busy recently despite the fact we're in a drought, when it would make more sense to stay home. Today was a relatively slow day, which enabled me to act a little slower and joke around a bit more. I received plenty of "Happy birthday"s and looks of amazement when I say I'm turning 20 (I look like I'm 18).

Observing that I hadn't yet received any presents for my birthday, one of my coworkers borrowed markers from another coworker and surprised me with the picture of a slice of cake drawn on a napkin. I thought it was really neat, even though the flame was purple.

I get home and tell my girlfriend of six months, Breanna, that I was home so she could come over. She wanted to visit for my birthday and my parents didn't object. They really like her. My mother suggested I take a shower so I did so. Unexpectedly, Breanna arrives while I'm still in the shower. She and my mom begin chatting while my mother braids her hair. I get out and sit in the living room with them. Recently I've begun wearing tank tops (aka muscle shirts or wifebeaters) because I've seen Breanna wear them and with the kind of 100-degree weeks we've been having lately, I needed something that is semi-decent yet ventilated. At first they're quite itchy but now I'm getting used to it. You know how in the movies, there comes that time when the mother busts out the baby pictures and shows them to the girlfriend? That happened today, and I was not embarrassed by it. I was, however, a little displeased with how I looked between the ages of 11-15.

My father comes home from work and my parents leave for Wal-Mart to get me a cake and a present. I've really been wanting a black fedora but alas they could not find them. They come home and reveal they've bought me a 4 gigabyte memory card for my cell phone much to my nerdy delight. Later on, card problems result in me having my mother's 8 gigabyte card! Our dinner is hot dogs and French fries.

It was originally intended that me and Breanna would head to her church for Wednesday afternoon service however her grandma had some family issues that needed to be attended to and she was low on gas, so it was decided Bre would hang out at my place until sundownWhen my mother's ghost-themed shows started coming on at 6, my father went upstairs into their bedroom to rest and watch the stuff he likes. We spent the evening cuddled up, watching TV with my mother, and playing Farkle. I intermittently logged onto the Internet from my phone. I've had some 30 birthday wishes from friends and family today. Shortly after 9 Bre went home. We hugged and kissed in the living room, to which my mother just had to make a tease. Now my parents have officially seen me kiss a young woman.

Back to what I was considering. My twenties are perhaps the most influential years of my life. What I do in the next decade will largely decide what the rest of my life is. I have big plans for myself and in these next few years I'm going to make it or break it. This is the time in which I join the rest of society, bringing to the table my eccentric way of living and looking at things. I asked myself, "What do I want to do by the time I'm 30?" and here are a few ideas:

• Register to vote. I  could have this done by next week. I wanted to register when I turned 18 but I never quite got around to it. I want to get this done. I believe that as an American citizen voting is an important right to utilize. This is a nation "of the People, by the People, for the People" (Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) and since the government is chosen by the People, I want to have a say in what our leadership is. My political alignment is strange: I'm socially conservative (I believe the government should uphold traditional, in this case Christian, values) yet economically liberal (I believe the government should have an active role in the economy and helping the needy). I've used the term centrist to describe myself and also socialist to a lesser degree. The true term, as I found out, is "populist." Registering to vote can be done on the Internet in what seems like a few minutes.
• Get my driver's license. Pretty important since I'm moving three hours' worth away in a year for university. Also, get a car.
• Graduate university. With a Bachelor's of Science in computer science.
• Get a job I love. As a computer programmer of some sort.
• Start my own company. If I can't find a satisfying job, I'll make a little Web programming company. It will primarily do browser-based multiplayer games like OGame, World of Warcraft, and so on. I have some game ideas I'd like to write.
• Buy a house for myself. I really don't know where I'm going to live after university, wherever the jobs are. But I want to buy a house for myself and have a stable place to live. Of course, my parents own our current house so in later years I could probably move into this one.

• Get married. I've never considered getting married because that's just not something I can schedule. But as a married coworker told me today, I shouldn't put that off too long. I work with men in their late forties and fifties who never married. I see marriage not as a constraint but rather a blessing.

So my presents this year:

• $25 dollar check from my grandparents.
• A card from said grandparents.
• A drawn cake on a napkin. 
• A card from my grandmother on the other side of the family.
• A card from my girlfriend, who forgot to bring it with. 
• A 4 GB memory card from my cell phone, which ended up being an 8 gig card due to technical issues.
• An anime-style picture of me and Bre popping out of a cake drawn by a very talented friend.

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 14: Where Ya' Been?

I must have four or five draft entries that haven't been posted because I haven't had the time to clean them up and submit them. I've been busy with college work, which has been eating up the majority of my time. Work continues to be exhausting and gets a little less fun every day. I'm becoming more active in the church scene - operating an online site for the youth group as well as getting into my ministry role.

Also, thoughts that would otherwise go here are being diverted to a new place, a personal wiki I set up not too long ago. My thoughts are actually very interwoven and only a wiki is able to let me write out my thoughts and conveniently link them together.

If any of you have heard of Minecraft, then you know that it's amazingly addictive and a good way to lose free time. If not, it's awesome.

Carry on. Comment at will.

Post 10: Kansas: Year One

June 26, 2009: Graduation. I was #3 out of a class of 249. I joked how there was valedictorian, salutatorian, but no fancy name for the person in third place. Trinitorian? Anyway, it was really life changing.

June 27, 2009: I woke up in my practically barren bedroom and met up with my grandma and my extremely irate mother and went to the bus station. For the next 28 hours we changed buses with little sleep until we arrived at our destination.

June 28, 2009: Arrived at a bus terminal somewhere in Oklahoma. Transferred, rode to Coffeyville, Kansas. Transferred, entered Independence, Kansas. Start of a new life. New house. New friends. New job. New city. New college. New everything.

It's just amazing how much I've changed since showing up in this little city a year ago. Just in the past twelve months, so many things have started or ended that it's almost mind blowing.

My relationship with God through Jesus Christ has expanded and deepened and will continue to do so throughout my life. I've recently started putting emphasis on the relationship aspect and am currently learning how to talk to and hear from God. The sooner is much easier than the latter, although there are many ways that God talks to us. That's a whole 'nother blog entry.

I have now been working at McDonald's for over nine months and I must be one of the few people there that really enjoys the work. Granted it does get mundane at times but the nature of the work provides me ample time for introspection and critical thinking. After three months I was given the Outstanding New Employee award and in March I was Employee of the Month.

A few days ago I completed the last piece of work that I needed to do for college. I was ahead of schedule right from the start and finished with six days left before the class ended. It was an online course about something that I've been doing for six years - HTML and related technologies. Nevertheless I did learn quite a bit. I'm enrolled in three courses for the fall semester and the remaining two that I intend on taking are currently under question so I have to wait until that's resolved. It looks like I'll be taken an all-online route for this semester because I ride my bike everywhere and it's a 3.4 mile distance between home and college. 

I'm also heading up the Bible study. Because my style of teaching and speaking was really boring it almost died out right away. The problem comes from the fact that I'm naturally highly logical and I think differently than most of the kids that go to that place. I failed to connect with them at an emotional level. However that's going to change. I have an evangelistic streak plus a knack for retaining knowledge for a reason.

In addition, I have made plenty of friends. When I'm new to any place, I appear to be someone who is slow to open up to others. I realized a couple days ago that this doesn't mean that I'm unsociable, but rather that I take longer to make friends than most people. However, when I do speak I'm very open and answer most questions about myself. I also noticed that when talking to people online, it's not normal - nor easy - for me to pose questions to learn about someone else.

Next in the list is this: I acquired my own Internet access. Up until then I had been going to libraries to use the Internet on their computers, but now I have full access except in situations where the weather goes bad and kills my wireless Internet. I clock in as much as 8 or more hours a day on the Web, limited only by other things that I must do. However it has been a huge asset for me because with the unlimited access, I've been able to work on my website and other yearnings I've had for a long time.

Sometime around March of this year, I began going to the Haven. This place has been a major help for me socially. I'm the sort of person that will stay home if I don't have work or church. It's natural for me to stay alone and on the computer. But loneliness is hard to deal with and upon hearing about the Haven from my youth group friends, I decided that I would go there. I sort of expected a place with white walls and several rooms, like the Town Boys' and Girls' Club that I used to go to, but I found something completely different. It's primarily one huge room with a snack stand, a smaller blue room with costumes and two small bathrooms. The size and shape of the building is irrelevant, however; what matters are the people. Most of them are not Christians, but there is a core of people including the families of the founders who are of the faith and have become my friends. It's been my way of socializing and connecting to others. They have many concerts which I don't attend because it's not my thing, but they have so many other things that it's totally worth it. 

Now for my concluding statements. This has only been my first year. The second one has already begun, and things are guaranteed not to remain the same. Life is rarely static and if it is, don't get used to it because things change faster than the blink of an eye, I can tell you that right now. I can look forward to an ever-increasing growth in my relationship with God, as well as more college education to clog my hours and more time and experiences at work. Hopefully my Bible study will continue to improve to the point where I'm drawing in more people and maybe be able to save a few more souls for the kingdom. I have no clever final sentence so this is the end of it.

Post 3: A New Leaf in an Old Year

This post will mostly contain updates that I deem worthy of putting in the weblog. I know it's been a few months since I've added anything, and there have been several changes during that time.

First of all I should mention that I got a job, and I've had it for nearly three months at this point. I work at McDonalds as a maintenance worker - or at least, that is the title I use to describe it. My shift comes during the lunch hour. In the past it was quite variable as to what days I would be on and off, recently the top manager made an official schedule that I would follow regardless of what was printed on the paper. Tuesday through Saturday I would work from 11 to whenever, usually 3, and I'd have the other two days off. This works perfect for me because of my ISTJ personality, which means I love having things organized and scheduled out. Many would feel dead having everything timed out to the last minute, but I feel dead if it's not like that.

McDonalds has its quirks, good and bad. The good part is the relative simplicity of the work. I sweep the floors almost neurotically, I wipe down the tables, I change the garbage bags in the lobby when they get full, and I also keep the windows clean, take trays to the back when they get piled high enough, and maintain the bathrooms. It also provides me with a stable income, as there aren't too many other people who would do this job. Even though I'm only getting $7.25 an hour, it still means a $200+ paycheck every other Tuesday. Hardly enough to sustain an independent individual, but I still live with my parents. And since I'm a conservative person with money, it doesn't disappear very fast. Plus, I typically get a break around 1:30-2:00, during which I eat the free employee meal. On the down side, the place can get really, really busy which tires me, and my feet and lower back ache after an hour or two.

The people at McDonalds are quite diverse in appearance and personality. The highest-ranking person is Dave, who seems to resemble Vince McMahon. He's a quiet but agreeable person. Miss Daphne is the highest level manager and is equally kind and tough. She recently lost her 23-year-old daughter Tori, who was one of her subordinate managers. Jennifer is another manager. Isaac is one of the other few maintainers. Unique is how I describe him. Annoying is another. He runs his mouth and doesn't think before he speaks. He has several different terms he's called me by: "Jimmy Dean", "Daniel Boone", "Peanut", "F*cknut". However, he is clearly an excellent and skilled worker, having been there for 13(?) years. Brandon is a weekend worker with a satiric sense of humor. He also does sounds and impersonations. Rambo (I think his real name is Robert) is another veteran of the place, now in his 4th year. He is also very funny. Then there are others who I find less notable: Vicky, Connie, Nycole and her boyfriend James, Eleanna, Brenda, Miranda, etc...

Second of all, I've decided to put off college until fall 2010. The main reason for that is the fact that they don't answer the phone at Independence Community College. These statistics are estimates, but by no means exaggerations. I have a 10% chance of getting an answer, another 10% chance that they'll call back if I leave a message, and an 80% chance that nothing will ever happen. I missed the date for turning in the financial aid forms because of outdated information on their website, and in any case I still needed to schedule orientation and it just seemed off to start in spring 2010. So I'm out of school for another 9 months. I really will be taking a year off of school then.

I'm already thinking about what my New Year's Resolutions will be. Currently they include: 1) Living more godly; 2) Being more in-depth in my Bible study; 3) Pray more; 4) Use better posture and eye care when using the computer, since I'm usually on it most of the day.

My review of "Ben 10: Alien Swarm": Out of 100, I have to give it an 82. The movie had a good plot and sequence of events. It added two good items to the Ben 10 mythology. First was the fact that Plumbers ride motorcycles. These were seen extensively in the movie. Second was the futuristic-looking command center that was in the back (and presumably underground) of a car repair shop/gas station. The female actors were very cute. But I did have a few quibbles with it. The plot itself was cliche: the main character goes against the established order to act on a hunch. This could also be questionable to parents, since if they let their kids see this, then their children might get some ideas. About 15 minutes into the movie, there's an argument between Grandpa Max and Ben, and Max gives in way too easily. Of course, without that scene, the rest of the film would have been worthless. BTW, I noticed Ben and Gwen kept calling him "Max", not "Grandpa Max". The movie could have used a little bit more light in it. And probably my biggest issue with it - which shows how it's a minor one anyhow - is the fact that these kids are 16 years old, and yet their actors are all at least 23. Even Daniel Radcliffe was about the same age as the character Harry Potter he portrayed. But all in all, this was a good movie.

[EDIT: 1/1/2010: I originally, accidentally, said I had put off college until 2012. No, I mean 2010! Ugh, this whole end-of-the-world scare is messing my typing up!]