Merideth, location, and decisions

On Mondays and Fridays, I pick my sister Merideth (non biological sister, the one I grew up with all my life) up and take her to work. I have been doing this ever sense she got her 2nd DWI (Driving While Intoxicated). And, well she is really picky about me taking pictures of her lately. I don't know if it is because she knows I will put it on my BLOG or what. She use to love to read my BLOG. She does not read it anymore. :o(I love my sister Merideth so much, my heart just aches for her always. I wish she expressed her feelings about things. I wish I could get her to talk about things. It is so hard for me to witness to her, or anyone close. I think mostly it is because I am so afraid of failure. Ya know, like I am just so afraid that it will be something that I won't say, or maybe say wrong that will keep her from getting to know God. This way of thinking is of course lies that Satan uses to decieve us, but they work sometimes. I sure do love Merideth, and if the only way I can show it to her is by picking her up 2 times a week, and taking her to work, well so be it. I will get her breakfast while I am at it. From Arbys, like she said she likes. When I got to school to do some studying, I felt like seeking out a new study location. I did just that, not only did I go into a building that I had never studied in before, I choose a type of seat that I had never studied in before (not the exact seat, but the type of seat I am referring to). Yea, I tried it out. I even got through chapter 20, but it was loud in there, and people were just all loud and stuff. I was a fool not to go to the library. Sorry Helmke, I won't turn my back from you again (Helmke is the name of the library on campus, and i'm not really sorry).

(CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE AND READ MESSAGE)

I was really looking forward to going to BSF all day today. I had really been applying things from the lesson through out my daily life. For instance, the guy Aung that I talked to on Thursday. The gentlemen from Berma. Well I saw him again at the library, and we talked, and just tonight, he called me. It was so exciting to speak with him on the phone. Now I have his cell phone number, and it is just a good place to start. I hope to have the opportunity to tell him what is most important in my life at some point.

Back to BSF though. I really looked forward to the lecture, the notes were awesome, and I had great discussion in my small group. BUT, I wanted to hear what Jack had to say. He of course had so much very enlightening things to get accross, and I wanted to ask his opinion on Tom once he was done with his lecture. I told him a bit about what I had experienced at Starbucks with Tom. I gave him a slight peek as to what decisions Tom was making and what not, but mostly wanted his opinion as to why I felt so sure of what "God" was telling me with Tom @ Starbucks. . . . . . . I had a complete heart change with Tom. I had to take back my affirmation, and explain to Tom today that I do not feel as though he is making a correct decision. I had to explain that he was not acting within the context of a responsible Christian man with regard to his relationship with his fiance. He started dating her 6 months ago, he wants to elope, and get married A.S.A.P. There is so much more to the story than that, but he stepped down from his position as a staff member with Young Life so he could go ahead with his decision. And, after the hours and hours of spending time with him and talking about it on Saturday. I think it could have very well drained me, and put me in the mental state of mind that detracted me from really hearing what God had to say. Why I felt those extreme feelings like I did, well I still do not fully understand. I do know God is teaching me something, and I am praying that he continues to reveal what that is exactly. When I talked to Tom today. I explained my new stance. That I believe he is acting impatiently. That if she is as important to him as he says she is, then he will practice discipline and patience. That he will respect authority, and not just justify his decisions. It was really hard to tell him, but I am not the only one, not by a long shot. He got pretty cold with me. That hurt, but I understand he needs his space now. The situation just sucks.

I hope I didn't just massively confuse everything. If you don't get it, ask me specific questions, and I will do my best to explain.

VALENTINES DAY

Let's start it off right. The movie I shared on my BLOG yesterday, well it just got a whole lot better. Watch this video to see how. Yea, that is great.

Okay, so it is valentines day today. I am proud to admit that I do in fact have a Valentine.

(Lili)

The only thing is....she is a bit of a long distance valentine. She lives in Arizona, and I met her last summer when I volunteered at Lost Canyon (the camp I got an internship @ this summer) last summer in Arizona. I did get her a gift too. It was a singing picture message. High tech right? Anyways, I have not heard back from her on if she liked it or not, but I am sure she did.

What did my V-Day consist of you might be asking yourself. Well, I will tell you. CLEANING! I cleaned my bathroom, and managed to take an incredibly long long time.

This is a picture of my bathroom before I started cleaning. Call it a "BEFORE" picture if you will. Yes yes, now hear this, the bathroom is much cleaner in this "after" picture so to speak. Gotta love a good before & after picture though don't ya? So, most people could probably accomplish a clean bathroom in ohh maybe an hour tops. It took me nearly three and a half, no kidding. Things like breaking the sweeper belt, cleaning toilet tank's, cleaning all wood work, shower detailing, etc. seem to really take up a lot of time. I know what you are thinking, you are thinking, "did you say toilet tank cleaning?" YES I DID!! Check out the before and after shot's of this bad boy. Yes, here she is. Years and years of water flowing in and out, in and out, dropping slight amounts of sediment here and there can really add up in a toilet tank. Well, when I was reading the directions on the back of the toilet bowl cleaner, I noticed it gave directions for cleaning the toilet bowl tank as well. I thought to myself, "well why not?" SO I DID IT!! AND CHECK OUT THE END RESULTS!!! That's right ladies and gentlemen, my very own, spotless TOILET BOWL TANK! Not only will I have the peace of mind that the inside of something I never see is clean, but I will be able to sleep better at night knowing that the world has been rid of a little less toilet bowl tank sedimentation. WHAT A LOAD OFF MY BACK! I had all the intention in the world to go onto campus early and study study study. But, my laziness and bathroom kept me from leaving my house until about 5:30'ish PM. Once I did leave though, I managed to get a lot done. This is where the majority of my study time took place. I started out with Mass Communications, and ended with Elements of Business Law. My chosen location was right atop a stairwell. The highlight of my evening was when I heard a voice scream, "YAAAHOOOOOO!!!" very loudly. Then, shortly after the happy scream of exaltation, a young man appeared through the doors. I smiled, and asked him, "so what are ya so happy about?" He politely explained how he was done with wrestling for the season, or possibly forever. He said he lost his last match, but was so happy to be finished. We had a little small talk afterwords, but it was just so nice to be able to hold a perfectly nice conversation with a complete stranger. I like that stuff a lot.

~MIKEY,
OUT~

I got some cool pictures, I did

Okay, it is super late, and I am extremely tired. I am going to upload some pictures that I took for my photography class that I really liked. I am going to explain them slightly, and then say one last thing and go to bed.K, I took this picture at work. I was laying with my back on the ground. I had two trusted boys from childcare come with me, and I told them to throw their balls up in the air as high as possible. They did, and I snapped the picture. I felt it came out pretty good. The assignment was action shots.With this picture, I had Nicks friend Jesse drive past me going about 40MPH, and had nick point at my camera. I wanted it to be a bit blurry, so I gave it a slower shutter speed. Here is the edited picture.Yea, I liked it.

Then last, but not least. I did several pictures of traffic moving quickly with a very long exposure time. Check out how this one turned out. I like it a lot. Amateur photography YES, but I like it a lot. It is really cool, because in yesterday's BLOG, you can see how I set up the shot, and then the outcome. NEAT NEAT NEAT!!!

I decided to not say anything else about the thing I was possibly going to say....not yet, maybe in the weeks to come....possibly. ;o)

G'Night!

post 4 today

I got around today. Crap, I didn't get a whole lot accomplished, and right now I am blogging from the STUDIO-M where I have been working on completing my brochure and finalizing the video for my Australia "group" project.

I am so tired, I can't hardly think.

I got into a little fight/commotion with one of the ladies at work. I was being overly sensitive & decided to make myself known. When I want to make myself known, I tend to be extremely and overtly conflictive. This was the case today. It took me a while, but when I was driving to school to work on this project, I called her and appologized. I explained everything, and I think we are on the same page.

Time to go home, I can still make it to bed by 10PM!

do all good things have to end?

I suppose some good things never have to come to and end. BUT, the farm did. Before I left for Fort Lame (kidding, I love Fort Wayne) I decided to change the oil in my car. I did it all by myself. Well, I suppose I had a little bit of help, maybe support from Bernie, the Saint Bernard (Dick's dog).

The drive home was a pretty one, but I am thinking that pretty much anywhere in Indiana with tree's is a pretty drive right now.

The drive home was enjoyable, but leaving the farm was not. It is like I am back in High School. When I was in High School, I would get a churning stomach feeling when I had to leave Dick's farm. I love it there so much, almost as if I belong there. ~SIGH~

The most bizarre thing happened too right before I left. I said my goodbyes, and received my final words of wisdom..things like, "don't eat the rat poison." But was completely thrown for a lope when I was handed a check for an amount of money far crazier for me to comprehend. I was paid for this weekend??? I was paid real money to do something that I would happily pay my own hard earned money to do myself. This was hard for me to understand. I am still not really sure why Dick decided to pay me, but I didn't turn back or rip up the check. I will just be extremely grateful, and put the money to good use.

When I got home, I decided I would go to the library to write some of my English paper......well that didn't go too well, so I went to my best friends parents house to hang out with his little brother Nicky. Nicky goes to Snider (the school I do contact work at for Young Life) and I have needed to spend time with Nick, so I just did it. Super fun too!! Nick is AMAZING at Call Of Duty 4 (action/first person shooter game for X-Box 360).Nicky is such a cool dude. Far cooler than most kids I know, and I know quite a few. He is extremely genuine, and funny. His humor reminds me of his brothers, and that is hard to come by.Yes, we ended the evening with some PIZZA HUT. By far not our first choice for pizza, but really the only place we could go to late at night none the less. So, we made it work. Nicky is the man! Pizza is the food! Bernie is the dog! And it is time to hit the sack.

Rained some more

I started my Saturday off pretty early, and got my butt to school to get some study time. I want to be super prepared for my first test in OLS. I don't want to just assume his tests are going to be super easy like I think they will be, so I will be extremely prepared instead. Here was a picture I took during my lunch break. You can see the bottled water and Pop Tarts that I was eating. ;-)When I drove onto campus this morning, there were big huge balloons hanging and tons of people gathered out in the rain. I asked one of the officers what was going on, and he said it was a walk for heart health day. Apparently these were the people that were walking around for heart health awareness, or fund raising, i'm not too sure. But the walked, and made a lot of noise while they did it. Well, later in the day, once things were dryed off and it got really humid, my friend Tony wanted to go pick up this motor bike he bought. It get's like 80 MPG, and he is happy with it. I had to drive behind him, cuz it wasn't legal or anything.

After we got back to his house, We (Tony, Chris, Josh & myself) went and got hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy. It is a funny movie, and Mos Def is really funny in it. His character is quite enjoyable. It kind of slams religion, and just a lot of things, but the overall story is interesting and very witty. Josh kept slamming religion too. He claims to be Agnostic, but with many overtones of actually "knowing truth," but just not wanting to live by it. It's frustrating, because sometimes he puts out some some low blows....I usually just don't hang out with him or those guys for a long time. I'd rather be by myself than hear that constantly.

i'm going to do my BSF study and go to bed.