Forget Studying- I Have Found My Twin, and He Has No Advice.

“I am a sophomore in college and I have no idea what I want to major in or what I want to do for a career. I have heard “you have so much time,” and “oh you’re so young, you don’t need to worry about it,” but it’s something you can’t stop thinking about when your academic advisor is shoving 4 year planners down your throat and all your friends have their lives planned out past grad school! My school is also pretty expensive and I feel like I’m wasting my time if I don’t figure out why I’m here. 

 I know things may change in the future but presently I want to know what to do because being “undeclared” and so confused is quite stressful. 

I also don’t feel like I’m really interested in anything. The only things I really love are music, art, and literature. But, I feel like I am not good enough to commit to any of those things. 

If only there was a “I have no idea what to do with my life” major….”

I found it on a website.  I’m actually a Freshman so he can’t really be my twin.

One (including myself at first) would think upon finding this I would feel better knowing that I am not alone.

WRONG!!

It is no consolation whatsoever.  So I’m not alone, big deal.  All it means is that my problems mean even less because they are not unique. 

If I have a problem, and I share that problem with a million other people, does that make it any less of a problem? Does that make it any easier to solve? Negative! It does not!

In fact it not only doesn’t console us, it gives us reason to feel worse.  It’s like saying this problem is so hard that even when you have millions of people working on it we still can’t find the answers. 

So among the list of things adults can go ahead and stop telling teenagers while they pretend it helps us which includes “you have plenty of time” and “you’re so young” ; “You’re not alone” can be added.

Hello People.

I’m not going to be posting anything on here for the next two weeks because I have finals next week.  I will be spending most of my time reading Oedipus, matching classical composers to classical compositions, conjugating German verbs, trying to remember the difference between alleles, gametes, and chromosomes (I know their are 46 of one of those things in every human…I think it’s chromosomes), and writing a paper on my own personal philosophy of Liesure.  That’s right, Liesure.  My philosophy of it.  My personal philosophy of it.  My personal philosophy of liesure.  Oh college…

I don’t know how much you can expect to hear from me over christmas break…probably some but not a lot.  College is where I Live, home is where I Veg.  The three hour journey there or back is my activation/deactivation process.

Back to Square One? fine.

I just spent an hour typing on my keyboard thinking I was being very insightful and when I read over it I realised it was the most scatter-brained thing I’ve ever written.  Ctrl-A Del!

It might help that now as I’m writing I’ve turned off the Lady GaGa in my headphones.  If you haven’t heard “Bad Romance” yet then you can just stop reading and open up a new tab so you can listen to it on youtube.

Anyways, As you’ve probably recognised, I’m back to square one with this post that I’m writing, but what the title is actually refurring to is a little more profound.  like…My career plans.

The more I do things with people and the more I hang around them the more I realise…I hate people.  They’re the most grating thing on the planet.  When I think about it, I’ve been trying to play it down a lot that I despise people.  I was sick of people thinking I’m depressed.  Here’s the fact of the matter: if you like to be by yourself people will think you are depressed.  That’s why I hate them, they’re always thinking things.

Even this very second I’m doing something stupid just to avoid “people.”  It’s so awkward with my new roomate that I’m sitting in the study lounge in my dorm at 1 am hoping that when I finally go back he’ll be asleep and I won’t have to think of a response to his “wtsup?” when I walk in the door, probably the only thing he has ever said to me and he says it to me every time I see him. YOU DON’T GIVE A CRAP ”WTSUP!” WHY MUST YOU ASK!!??  see what I mean? I really hate people.

and about the whole roomate thing, my friends keep telling me, “it’s ok, I never talked to my roommate either.  most people don’t become friends with their roommate.”  and like ok yeah I can see that, but what they’re not getting is I don’t care about being “friends.”  I have enough “friends.”  But I can’t just live with someone that I never talk to.  Maybe some people can but it’s too awkward for me.  I mean even my friend who told me he wasn’t friends with his roomate, when I was in his room one time when his roommate came in, they had a conversation and they talked about their weekends.  come on that all I’m asking for!! just a little conversation!! I don’t even care what It’s about!  the one time I did have a conversation with him was on a day when I came back into our room looking like a wreck because I just came back from scuba diving (“Yes!” I though, “finally I will have something to say when he says ’sup?’!”) and I was like, “I just went scuba diving.”  Oh and one time he said something to me about twilight.  but that’s it.  Luckily in my old room my old roommate was the kind of person to break the ice, but in my new room niether of us seem to be and it’s just torture.  so here I sit at now 1:10 am. 

ANYWAYS…

When I was younger I was so much more awkward then I am now.  I can actually be sitting on the inside of a booth and ask my friends to get up so I can go to the bathroom without my face turning red.  I can speak up when I have to (like in Wendy’s the other day, “We ordered a medium fry and a small fry and…these seem to be both small).  That’s not the problem.  The problem is I have to ask people to get up, I have to police the “team members” at Wendy’s (I worked at McDonald’s for two weeks and if anything is the same at Wendy’s then I don’t care what the stupid title is or what they write on the name badges I never once felt like a “team member”).

Anyway, I’m really not a loud person at all.  I never yell or anything (outside of at my family.  lol).  I mean, I wasn’t like…angry that she gave me the wrong fries.  I mean just because I hate people doesn’t mean I get mad or frustrated all the time, because I really don’t.  I really really don’t.  like I said…It’s just grating.  And it’s exhausting to be around people so much, because you have to act a certain way around people that you can’t do when you’re by yourself.  Not the ones that like people.  They act the same all the time.

So now with these realisations in mind I don’t think I want to be a youth pastor anymore.  I don’t think I should really do a job where I have to be good with people because I’m just not.  I can do a good job acting like I am, like for the two days over thanksgiving break that I worked at Sears for example, I was awesome at helping customers those two days.  In fact someone when and did an online survey at searsfeedback.com and gave me amazing reviews.  In the other two years that I worked there no one once did that.  I can’t seem to be around people for too long before they just drive m crazy. 

I’m not saying I’ll never change, I’m just saying…Now I’m back to where I was before.  No career plans or anything.  Even though my major had nothing to do with me becoming a youth pastor, I don’t even feel like studying journalism and psychology anymore.  If I had only one wish it would be that I could be really really interested in learning something, and then stay interested in learning something for the rest of my life.  For short moments I’m so interested and I’m so eager to learn things about certain topics, and then it goes away as quickly as it came with no explanation for coming or going.  It really is tormenting.  Perhaps if I stick it out with psychology I’ll learn why that is about me, and maybe also why even though I’ve made a lot of friends and can manage to get along with people pretty well, I stil despise them.

BTW I usually proofread things before I post them but it is now 1:16 and I’m going to bed.  Just thinking about walking into (what I make to be) such an awkward situation is quite difficult.  College is really messing with my mind…I love it so much!

Homesickness?…Nah.

Oh blog, my only constant.  The only thing that’s here no matter where I am.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Zach Braff’s “Garden State.”  At one point when Largeman and Sam are sitting in the pool, Largeman talks about what it’s like when you leave home:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

I’ve only been gone for five months so I still pretty much feel at home in my house, but I also feel at home in my room at LHU and with my friends in Lock Haven.

When I first walked in the door of my house that’s hardly changed at all and went up to my room that’s in pretty much exactly the same shape it was in when I left, I kind of felt like the last five months and everything I did at college was all just a dream, that now I was back to reality.  I only felt like that more, like when I drove my car again, when I put my Sears badge on again, when I parked in the same spot at work that I always used to park at, and when I stood outside freshens drinking a Jamaican Jammer during my fifteen minute break talking to my friend that works there, when I went to church and heard the same old songs.

Especially when I saw the same faces I was at one point so used to seeing everyday, and had gotten so used to not seeing anymore.  Lock Haven is such a small University that you pretty much see the same faces everyday, you can’t go anywhere without running into a familiar face, so it was really wierd when I was at work, because I kept seeing people from a distance and at first thinking they were someone I would recognise from school, before I reminded myself there would be no such person in chambersburg (only two other people from my high school went to Lock haven)

And now that I’m back at LHU it feels like going home for a few days was the dream, that this is the reality.  Actually the fact of the matter is niether reality feels quite real.  It’s strange but I kinda like it.  I have this whole life up here, and I have this whole life in Chambersburg too, and niether one knows about the other, it’s kind of awesome.  It’s all ok in both places.

Pornography, a Portrait of my New RD, a Bible Lesson, and Quite a Hypocrite: The Bathroom on the Third Floor.

I just spent way longer then neccisary in the bathroom on the third floor of the library.

As I was sitting in the stall, I was worried that my friend who was sitting outside waiting for me to come out would wonder what was taking me so long in there.  It wasn’t going to the bathroom that was using up all my time, it was reading the things that were written on the walls of the stall.

I was both disgusted and impressed (but not surprised) by the drawings on either side of me.  Both are too disgusting for me to describe (not only because I’m worried about disgusting my audience but also because I myself am disgusted), but I can tell you the skill was very impressive. 

I’ll tell you one of the pictures was of a woman in quite an “un-lady-like” position.  There was a name written on the wall and an arrow pointing from there to the woman, and I recognised the name, it was the resident director in the building I just moved into.  I’ve never met him.

There was also a little conversation going on.  It started, “God Loves You!” under which was written in different ink, “Stop lying to us!” under which was written in yet another ink, “we’re not,” under that, “Yes you are,” under that, “No we’re not,” under that, “who cares?” upon reading this I was thankful that I was alone in the third floor bathroom because I laughed out loud and nothing is wierder then hearing laughter coming from a bathroom stall.

Elsewhere was written the words “Romans 8:28.”  I obviously didn’t have my bible with me in that bathroom stall but as Romans is my favorite of Paul’s letters, I remembered that Romans 8:28 says something like “Everything works together for good to those that love God and are called to his purpose.”  Am I supposed to believe that this has something to do with something else written on the bathroom stall, or was it just a verse arbitrarily chosen as a candidate for vandalism?  I don’t exactly see the relevance of this verse in this bathroom stall situation, and even if I did I would ignore it, because I try not to take biblical advice from those who vandalise bathroom stalls.

There were many other things which sitting here right now, I can’t remember.  Most of them were pointless things like “have lots of sex” or “call 234-4567 for a good time (ask for Tom)”.  Far more contained absolutely no creativity, lots of people just like to write four letter words.

But my absolute favorite said, “Why do you guys write on bathroom stalls? do you think you are cool? you are so stupid.”  I think the same thing…but I put it on my blog.  Not on a bathroom stall.

Discression, Negativity, A Move Across Campus, and pointless fashion objects: Such is Life.

If there is ever a period of time that I don’t blog, like a short ‘hiatus,’ it would never be because I forgot, because in everything I do I look for material to put up here; it would never be because I couldn’t find material, because if there’s nothing in my life to talk about then there’s still something in my head, and it wouldn’t be because I’m too busy with homework, because even though I resolved not to blog until all my work is done that has so often not been the case.

It would probably be because of the advice I was given when I was a little kid, “If you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all,” or as Jane Austen puts it in Sense and Sensibility, “If you cannot think of something approprate to say you will restrict your remarks to the weather.” 

When I’m dealing with bad circumstances this blog will never be the first place I come.  First of all because I know complaining to the world will not help anything, and secondly because real life is more important; I need to sort things out there before I come here.

And this has been a rough week.  Because of circumstance I can’t really discuss on here I ended up moving out of my building and into another dorm to live with another roommate.  I have hardly even met him (he went home for the weekend and he’s not back yet) other then to say “hey this is the room I’m moving into on saturday.”

And such is the reason I’ve been in a negative place for a few days and since the people I dislike most are the people who spread negativity around I didn’t come here to talk about it.  So that’s where I’ve been as opposed to here blogging.

The search for a new roommate was not an easy one.  I first emailed all the resident directors and asked them which rooms had only one guy in them that I could move into.  Usually when a student needs to move out quickly he’s just given a room that is picked randomly from a list of available rooms, but because I can’t just live with anyone (no homophobes please!) I had to get ahold of that list and decide based on short meatings with each one.  By Wednesday of last week I had a list of nine rooms to choose from.  With friends from each building at my side, I visited each room.

The first eight candidates were either out at the time and not in their rooms, or were crossed off the list I wrote on my hand based on our meating.  When I got to the ninth room, I decided I didn’t care who it was.  I didn’t have any more time to be picky.  Luckily someone came to the door, and when he did, I handed him the form I needed him to sign that said he knew I was coming, which he signed knowing that I could technically move in without the afformentioned signature.  My freind who lives in the building who was with me (I was too nervous to visit these kids on my own!) asked him if  he was ok with having a roommate, and he said yes.  Of coarse I was worried that he would resent me for taking up the other half of his once private room, but I couldn’t take that into consideration when I needed to get out of my room as soon as possible and I was already shafted with 8 candidates.

So now I’m living in North hall.  It’s a building up on the hill, that means I have to climb over fifty stairs just to get here.  It’s pretty bogus considering my old building was right across the street from the building where I have most of my classes, and the dining hall, and that my room used to be directly across from the bathroom and right beside the laundry room and now I’m at the opposite end of the hall from the bathroom and the laundry room is on a different floor.  And the showers in North are bogus too.  I know I don’t have any right to complain though, I mean I did have the option of staying and letting my other roommate move out.  So anyway, between my roomate hunt, school work, my crazy club schedual, all my music ensembles, and of coarse hanging out with friends, I took two weeks off from the blog. 

There is one thing I’ve been meaning to talk about and it has nothing to do with roommates, dorm buildings, or school.  It has to do with what Oscar Wilde calls “a form of ugliness so hideous that it must be changed every six months.”  What is this form of ugliness?  Fashion.

It first occured to me as I was sitting in my lit class sometime early last week and reached behind my head to scratch my back, coming to a horrible realisation: my hood was inside out!

Nothing is worse then wearing a hooded sweatshirt and walking around all day with the hood inside out.  I know, because you feel sorry for someone in that position when you see them around. 

Then later that day when I was going back to my dorm, I caught my reflection in a big glass window in the hall where I lived, and the first place I looked was at my back, to make sure my hood was right side out.  Right after that I thought to myself, “hood!!??” 

Why do I want such a useless thing hanging from the back of my neck?? They are no use in the rain, they just get soggy and let the water in anyway, they’re not tight enough to keep your ears warm, they might keep the wind out but if you turn the wrong way they just let the cold air in.  I can’t see any possible reason why I would want a useless wad of fabric to hang off my back like a dead fish, and why I have to worry about making sure it’s not inside out.

hhm.  It turns out I was a little negative after all.  oh well.  such is life.

black racists, gay homophobes, and the old testament.

My friend’s neighbor’s roommate is one of the funniest black men I have ever met.  He was born in Dominica (not the Dominican Republic) and has a very funny Jamaican accent (don’t make fun of him though! he will punch you).  It’s difficult to figure out what’s funnier, the things he says, or the way he says them.  Anyway, through a bizarre twist of events that happened a few months ago, I ended up going with him and my friend and my roommate to McDonald’s. 

One of the reasons he is so funny is because he jokes about racism and other black people.  Things like one time when my friend asked him if he had his ID, and he said, “Because I’m black I took it?” Anyway, when we were getting dropped off outside our dorm when the trip was over, he said to me, “Lock your door, there’s black people out tonight!”

It’s easy for me to understand why a black man can dislike black people, because I myself do not like gay people.  Seriously- I do not want gay friends.  We are not good people.  (Haha…of coarse I mean “many of us…”  I would never say that about all of us).

The gay people that I’ve met during my life (with only a few exceptions) are not good people, they are people who care about one thing, and I don’t care what their excuses are because I have the same reasons to be messed up and I’m not.  Just yesterday I met exactly the worst kind of gay kid.  The one who doesn’t like religious people, who doesn’t like even gay guys that are religious, the gossip queen, that says things like “I can’t be held accountable for the stupid things I did when I was drunk,” the one who cares about little more then having fun and getting laid.  The one who gives the “gay community” a bad name. 

I would never be mean to someone because of this. I treat him the same way I treat anyone else, that’s my goal.  In fact, I wave and smile every time I see those lesbians that I partied with a few weeks ago.  I’ll still be open minded every time I meet a gay guy or a lesbian, I won’t dismiss every homo based on these accounts.

I’ll just say I have very little faith in the gay community. 

The religious debate still bothers me though. I really don’t want to be the one to write it, since I’m not an expert, but I figure I should address it once so I can get it over with and then anyone who reads it will understand my jusification once and for all.  and since I don’t have anything else to write about today, (Big sigh…) here we go.

Leviticus 18:22: Thou shalt not lie with man, as with woman: it is abomination. (KJV)

There you go.  Proof that homosexuality as it’s known today is ok.  I’m guessing you don’t understand.

I didn’t for years.  It took a butt-ton of reading and bible study and prayer but now I get it.

Let’s start by talking about the laws of the Old Testament, many of which Jesus himself was accused of breaking.  There are three kinds:

a) The moral law.  Examples of these are the Ten Commandments.  These laws reveal the nature of how God expects us to live and get along with other people.  Such a law would never be anything isolated; they are repeated throughout the old testament and emphasized in the new testament (this doesn’t mean if you find an isolated moral law in the bible  that it doesn’t apply, it means you won’t find one, if it’s isolated it’s not a moral law). 

b) The civil law.  An example is: Lev. 19:19: Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. (KJV).  These were laws like state laws are laws.  Like “no food or drink in the library” is a law.  They don’t apply today.  Only the principles behind the laws apply, meaning civility, submission, and the golden rule are key.

c) The ceremonial law.  Laws like how to prepare a burnt offering.  The only purpose of these laws was to point foreword to the coming of the savior, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, when Jesus was born, these laws were no longer necessary.  Not even Jesus followed them.  The only thing we can get from these laws is that when we want what God promises we have to do whatever God tells us to do.

Because I seem to be neither the author of the Old Testament nor an authority on the subject, I can’t answer the question of which type of law Leviticus 18:22 is with a simple proclamation of “A,” “B,” or “C.”  I’ll therefore have to answer the question in the following way:

First, let’s look at the context of the sexual act between two men.  Prohibitions of certain sexual acts in the Old Testament were intended to be a means of distinguishing worship of the lord from pagan worship of idols.  In pagan cults, homosexual acts were part of idolatrous worship and had everything to do with the satisfaction of lust and nothing to do with love.  Prohibition thereof does not necisarily refer to monogamous same-sex relationships outside the cult that have nothing to do with idol worship.

Second, let’s look at the other part of the verse.  The as with women part.  The first time I read this verse (several years ago) this is the place where I figured a loophole would exist if a loophole did exist.  It turns out one does.  The way man lied with a woman (which I am aware means sex) during the time the old testament was written is definitely not the same way as man lies with a woman today.  Back then, acceptable sex happened only one way: male dominance and female submission.  Such is not the case in marriage today, or is not expected to be the case when a man and woman get married.

Therefore, if Leviticus 18:22 was a moral law, the morals behind it would be not to engage in sexual acts with a man the way sexual acts were performed with a woman (they must be consensual and within a holy union, no dominance and submission), and they must not be lustful acts of idol worship as part of a pagan cult.

If Leviticus 18:22 was a civil law, it would no longer be in affect today because homosexuality is widely accepted by individuals and organizations, and while not every state and country has legalized gay marriage, very few prohibit same-sex relationships and sexual acts, no state in the United States prohibits sexual acts between two people of the same sex.  Basically, no matter what laws their are about marriage licenses, in America it is not illegal to be gay.

And if it were a ceremonial law, it doesn’t apply anymore anyway.

To say that it doesn’t matter what the context was, all that matters is that fact that it says “don’t lie with a man,” is to say that it’s equally wrong to wear clothes made out of two different types of material (good luck without polly-blends!) and planting two different seeds in the same field (that means no one can have a garden in their back yard that grows more then one plant).

I could also mention that there are exactly six places in the bible where homosexuality is mentioned (not condemned, mentioned) and 365 prohibitions of various heterosexual acts.  It’s obvious who needs more supervision.

I don’t like when people say our sexual orientations are our true nature, whether they’re homosexual or heterosexual or whatever.  Our true nature is a sinful nature.  Just look here.  If it was my “true nature” then it would be something I have to overcome, because it would be sinful.  Sexual orientation has nothing to do with “true nature,” rather, it has to do with lust.  Consider for a moment that heterosexual lusts are just as sinful as homosexual lusts.  So, what is a sexual orientation then? If it’s not “true nature?” I guess I can describe it as something not quite as set in stone as your race, but more set in stone then your nationality.  Under certain circumstances it can change, but never for the better and never for the worse.  For the neutral.

I like this quote, “sexual orientations are a gift from God and part of the marvelous diversity of creation.” 

phhiew! writing that was exhausting!  But I had to get it over with.

Japanese Horror Movie Night, Mistaken Sexuality, Wild Parties and Intoxicated Lesbians: A Predictable Holloween.

Holloween was…ok.  That’s about it.  The whole day pretty much panned out exactly as I would have expected it to and I learned a lesson that I didn’t really need to learn.  I suppose I can write about it anyway.  Who knows…usually when I start writing something I feel differently about it by the time I get to the bottom of the page.

So…It started on Friday.  I could really go back farther, but I’ll start Friday.  First, after band I had to go to a KKY rush.  Well…I didn’t exactly have to go…I had to go if I want to be in the fraternity, and I do, so I had to go.  Kappa Kappa Psi is an honors fraternity.  It do have anything to do with fraternities in movies where there are crazy parties and people all living in a frat house with pizza stuck to the cieling…there is no such house with no such parties.  An honors fraternity is basically an organization of people who serve another organization.  For KKY the service is to the band.  You join by going to the rushes, exhibiting charecteristics that the brothers like, and being invited in by getting a “bid.”  Then you have to go through the top secret “process” in which there is absolutely no hazing.  Anyway, I went to the rush because I wanted to join.  It has a lot to do with the t-shirts that brothers get to wear.

After that me and my freinds from band who were also at the rush went on a “ghost walk” around campus.  It’s no balogna: Lock Haven is the fourth most haunted place in Pennsylvania.  There was a lot of bad things that happened here that we learned about on the tour, girls hanging themselves from the bell tower, people falling down elevator shafts, murders, and all the stories were true according to newspaper articles in the library.  We had this big guy in leather pants and these huge platform boots with spikes on them for a tour guide and he walked us around campus and into the buildings where people claim to have seen or heard or felt ghosts.  Anyway, we actually heard something that could have been a ghost.  When we went into the basement of one of the buildings, there was a loud pounding on one of the doors, and there was no one behind the door.  I’ve learned from TV that when you investigate paranormal activity you have to rule out all other explanations before you can claim it was something supernatural.  I say it was a kid who lived in that building and knew our tour was coming through.  He probably pounded on the door and ran away really quick.  But who knows, maybe it was a ghost.

After that I went up with my freind toby to his building up on the hill to watch Japanese horror movies (Tobes is obsessed with the asians.  don’t ask.)  And when he was checking me in (guests must always be checked in to residence halls) we bumped into the guy who gave us the tour, he was in front of us in line getting checked in also so he could visit one of his freinds that lives in the building.  Toby said Hi and we started talking.  He asked me what we were doing for the night, and I said, watching japanese horror movies.  “aaahh…” he said, as if something was cute, “night in? are you guys dating?”

I don’t know why it came as such a surprise to me as it did that someone would think we were together.  Tobes, being the strait one, was the first to jump in with the “We’re just freinds.”  When me and Toby were in the elevator after that he told me I had to have realised people would think that.  I told him I honestly never thought about it, and it’s true.  Now that I do it’s not a surprise.  But whatever.  Tobes isn’t the kind of person to care about it.  He wasn’t even upset.  We had our little japanese horror movie night and got the crap scared out of us by the japanese version of “dark water.”  It was pretty much the same as the American one only mysteriously scarier.  I think it was the subtitles.

So then we have the next day.  Real Holloween.  I was so busy that I really didn’t think about it all day.  Since I have to march on the field during the half-time show of the football game, getting my band uniform on and getting my instrument all set up and marching up the hill to the stadium (we go parade style all the way up the hill) and then being in the show and then marching back down and taking my uniform off and such other things took up most of my time.  It was as fun as every other football game (only a band geek could understand why such things as donning an uncomfortable uniform and marching around all day with a trombone and sitting in the stands playing stand tunes and also doing it in the rain could be fun) but had nothing to do with holloween or the rest of the story.

So then after that…it was party time.  I didn’t really care to go to any parties but there were two that all my freinds wanted me to go to.  I would have felt too pathetic if I just went back to my room and sat there by myself.  I couldn’t hang out with Tobes either because he went home after the game (he’s an education major, that means if he ever gets caught drinking he gets in big trouble and has to change his major- you can’t be a teacher if you have that on your reacord).  So I went with my freinds to the party.  I planned to dress like Donnie Darko, but I couldn’t because the jacket that I needed to wear was covered in mud from when I went spelunking a few weeks ago and I never got around to cleaning it off.  So I just wore the Donnie Darko shirt and a different jacket and I had to wear a bandana because I wore one under my uniform hat to keep it on (it’s too big, I head dreads when I was fitted for it) and I couldn’t take it off because then I’d have bandana hair.

So.  I’m at the party.  There was no alcohol there; there was a threat that someone would call the cops on the people who’s apartment it was so they didn’t have any alcohol there.  I decided to go there for that reason, even though most (NOT ALL- I am good freinds with the hippie, the jesus, and the 80’s chick at the party) of the company would be disappointing.  It was at a lesbian couple’s apartment; their roommates went home for the weekend.  All of my other freinds went to this party at a frat house, so they could get drunk

What actually bothered me most about the night was the lesbian couple.  I know they’ll never get on here and read this and I have no interest in maintaining any kind of freindship with either of them so I’ll go ahead and talk about them.  We played this game.  It’s late and I don’t feel like explaining it, but basically you go around in the circle and say things.  I’m not exhaggerating when I say exactly every word out of both of their mouths had something to do with sex with each other, or at least sex in general.  Everything.  I was wondering if they were capable of talking about anything else.  In fact by the time I left I was wondering if they did anything else.  Have a relationship mayble?  Who knows.  I seriously didn’t want to think about them having sex that much.  I texted Tobes and told him and he said yeah, that’s how he would have expected them to act.  The bad part about this is that every little sex joke that anyone says gets a huge laugh by everyone in the room (I guess sex is hilarious) and even though I don’t think what they’re laughing at is funny, it’s hard not to laugh, or at least smile, when you’re surrounded by people who are laughing hysterically, and of coarse I can’t be called a kill-joy or a Debbie-Downer (unless I was perfect: 1 Peter 4:3-5.  It’s something I’m supposed to deal with, not avoid).

Anyway…despite the fact that I was disappointed by yet another gay relationship making a bad name for the rest of us, and the fact that all of my freinds were drunk except the absent education major who used that as his only reason, and my phone vibrating all night with text messages that read something like “jpw’s ye kohjy” because the author was drunk, the worst part about the whole weekend is that I was not surprised.

The biggest surprise of the whole two days was that someone thought me and Tobes were together, and that only comes from me being naiive.  I guess I can find relief in the fact that when I look back on these nights, I will have no regrets, and when I really think about it I guess it’s never going to be things like wild parties or fake laughing at stupid sex jokes that I’m going to remember, it’s going to be things like Japanese horror movie night with Tobes and laughing at someone because he thought we were together.

Basically Holloween is a pretty mediocre holiday.  There’s not really anything behind it like the birth of Christ or the resurrection of the body that I can get into, I mean I know it came from that “all hallows eve” or whatever and it has to do with dressing up to scare off the spirits, but it’s really just about little kids trick-or-treating in a Power Ranger’s gettup (you’re welcome mom- that’s her favorite word).  And there’s also carving pumpkins and going to haunted houses, but it’s all pretty routine and predictable.  So predictable in fact that I don’t even feel differently about the subject now that I’m at the bottom of the page.  I never really thought I would.

Fear and Loathing In Lock Haven

I’m kind of excited today.  You know that moment of profound enlightenment that I’ve been waiting for since the day I was born?  Well I think it might just be here.

So I’ve been having some of my friends read my blog recently- some of them real friends and some people on the internet that I don’t know.  One of the reasons I started this blog is because I like to write but I was so lazy that I never really did any of it.  I figured this could be the initiative- if I had people checking up on what I wrote periodically then I would be more likely to write.  At first I thought it was just going to be the illusion of people reading what I wrote.  I didn’t think anybody actually would.  It turns out there’s a whole network of “wordpress” people (other people who have blogs hosted by wordpress) who actually do get on a read these things, I usually average about ten hits a day, and I don’t mean that to be bragging: what’s ten? A pretty small number compared to things like YouTube videos with millions of hits.  I mean it to say, there are people reading this blog other then my family members who know about it.  That’s pretty exciting.

Anyway, what happened was, I gave one of my friends the address here and told him to check it out, just because I like to know what my friends think, since I write about them a lot on here and they know the whole story behind certain things it’s interesting to hear their opinions.

So, one time a friend told me I should be a journalist.  It got me thinking, that’s really what I’ve been this whole time isn’t it.  I’ve been “journaling,” so I’ve been a “journalist,” right? I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it but I think I could really be a journalist.  I don’t mean working for a newspaper and covering car wrecks and break-ins and nursing home celebrations of 100 years of life, I mean maybe as a columnist for a magazine or as a free-lance kind of thing for different publications, the kind of thing that people like Hunter S. Thompson did (of coarse I’ll do it without the drugs and the guns).  That would be ironic because I would have to go back to being a communications major like I was when I came in, the only thing that would change is my concentration, it used to be media broadcasting and now it will be print journalism.

But!! What about seminary?  I’ve been planning to go to seminary after college and become a youth pastor, and I was considering a major in psychology because it would come in handy in such an endeavor.  Well, what I’ve learned from camp counseling is that God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.  Think about me as a youth pastor.  I really don’t mean to brag or to toot my horn, but I could be awesome at it despite many personality traits that beg to differ.

The only thing is I kind of think there’s a certain age when youth ministry is no longer appropriate.  Really once I get to my late thirties and early forties my career as a youth pastor should probably come to an end, just because at that age I’ll probably get disconnected from the younger generations.  These aren’t things I can say for sure, obviously I don’t know what I’ll be like when I’m middle aged, but If it came to that and I felt like it was necessary to chose a different career, having studied something like journalism will come in handy.  I don’t really think it’s something that can get out-dated, like if I studied computer science or medicine they would have changed by the time I’m ready to use them, but things like math and English and on some level journalism don’t really change like that.  And that’s pretty cool.

So.  Next Wednesday at 7:00 (luckily that’s one of my two free hours that day) I will be attending a meeting about writing for the Eagle Eye (It’s the Lock Haven newspaper) and we’ll see how it goes.  After that I talk to my advisor and tell her I changed my mind yet again and I want to come back to communications (two weeks in I came to her and told her I was leaving it) but this time with a different concentration, and that I would also like to add psychology as another major.  I guess having two majors is pretty ambitious considering I already have two minors (I might drop German as my minor- I’ll still study it, it just won’t be my minor- what’s really the point of a German minor?) but it’s what I want to do and I won’t let her talk me out of it. 

But I’m not going to fantasize about these things.  I mean, about the rest of my life.  Do you know what I think the fantasy does? fantasy kills dreams.  I want what God has planned for me, not what I have planned for myself.  If (by fantasizing) I focus on what I want for myself, and only seek that, I might miss what God wants for me, or I might see it and ignore it.

Jeez.  I went from no direction at all to talk of a double major and a double minor.

So. I’m Joining the Army.

My mom texted me the other day and told me to check out this article.  I texted her back, “That was interesting. P.S. I’m joining the army.”

I should clarify before I go on that I’m not really joining the I army.  Just army ROTC.  I won’t be contracted,  and I won’t be applying for any financial aid, so I’ll have no obligations.  I have no intention of going into the Army as an officer after college. 

Why then, do I want to join? I have several reasons but none of them are very easy to communicate.

I guess I should start by mentioning the whole gay thing and that “don’t ask don’t tell thing.”  The first thing I would like to say is that I am not joining as an act of rebellion to the rule.  But I won’t lie, doing something I’m not technically allowed to do will be kind of awesome.  My freind is in ROTC, and also GSA.  When asked if she was a lesbian, she said no, but that since she’s in ROTC she couldn’t come out even if she was.  I don’t really know what’s going to happen because of it, I mean everybody already really knows so…we’ll just see.  I mean if it ever matters I doubt it will be to a freshmen in ROTC it would probably only matter if I were to get contracted and intended to join the for real army.  I always used to be against the military because they didn’t allow open homosexuality, then I realised it was far more productive to be for such an organization.

Considering homosexuality already exists in the military just like it quite possibly exists everywhere else, I won’t be breaking any ground.  I heard somewhere that president Obama intends to end the don’t ask don’t tell policy.  If I think about it the only conflict I can think of that could arise from having gay people in the military is the whole shower thing, that they would have to be naked together and that could obviously cause problems.  I have a question…Why can’t people in boot camp take showers just like I take a shower in my dorm? there’s a row of stalls, and at the back of each stall is a shower stall, so when I step out of the shower I’m still in a stall with a locked door where I can dry off and put clothes on before I come out.  Is there something about that that won’t work for people in the military? Why is it so important that men and women take respective communal showers?

Are they worried that gay men aren’t tough enough? because I’m pretty sure gay men are still men…our bodies are the same shape.  also, women are generally smaller then us and aren’t usually as muscular but they are allowed in so what’s the problem?

Another reason I want to join is because I will learn a lot in the military strategies classes that I’ll have to take.  My Dorm building is right beside the ROTC house, so I see the ROTC kids out there sometimes doing really awesome things.  Like they’ll legit rapell up the trees with ropes and then go back and forth between the trees on the ropes.  That is so awesome!  I looked at the list on the LHU ROTC website of classes that I’ll have to take over the next two years and one of them was called “Adventure training.”  I want to be trained in adventures!! 

Another reason is I’m not really the kind of person that has such a loud voice like…in tough situations, you know what I mean? like I’m not really the person that would ever speak up, and I don’t know…on the website they talked about how you’ll get leadership training and you will do all of these charecter building things and I guess I just want to learn more about it.  It could never hurt to learn.

And then there’s physical training every Monday Wednesday and Friday morning at 5:30.  I know it’s wierd, but I’m kind of excited about it.  I’ve never been physically active in all my life, so it’ll be a new experience for me.

When I told my freind that I wanted to join, he said, “you know they’re not really accepting of gay people right?” and I said yeah…”and they’re like really hardcore partiers?” yeah…”and all the guys are like alpha-males with complexes?” yeah…”and all of them could kick your ass?” yeah…”and they do a lot of physical activity?” yeah…

There were others, but I can’t remember them.  The point is, I’m not naive.  I know what the guys in ROTC are like, I mentioned that the ROTC house is right beside Woolridge hall? that means most of the guys in ROTC live in Woolridge.  they’re my wing neighbors (my wing goes like this: handicapped kids at the begining, then the ROTC guys, then me and my roommate, and then more ROTC guys.  There are a few regular people mixed in, but you get the picture).  I know what I’m getting myself into, but I have reasons for getting myself into it.

I mean I already mentioned that I want to be more physically active, and that I’m interested in what I’m going to learn, but there’s more.  It’s easy for me to write things on here and it’s easy for me to believe them about myself, but only because these aren’t things that are tested everyday.  I surround myself with freinds that are accepting of gay people and say “right on David” about what I wrote on here the other day about “how I make it easy,” but I want to know that I am still like this when it’s not easy.  I have to know that I’m not all talk.  It’s kind of like I’m challenging my own principles to see if they hold true in real life and not just on a blog or in a discussion.

And if it’s hell I can quit at the end of the semester.