blogahrah

Fear not dear reader.  Listening to The Everglow because thats the
popular thing to do.  But generally  I’m just too lazy to
update during the summer.

Completely untrue.  The summer has a different effect on me; I’m
more motivated, feel more responsible, and want to take care of my life
much more than when I’m at school.  I suspect when I’m at school,
it’s the feeling of being watched and like I have a babysitter that
demotivates me and really makes me feel childish and want to do silly
things like xanganize.

Heh, you can disable comments on posts.  Thats pretty cool.  But I
won’t because my value in this world is directly proportional to the
number of epropsâ„¢ which I receive.

It’s been ten minutes since I wrote that last paragraph, and I’ve
finally realized what pictures I lost when my hard drive crashed. 
All the pictures I took at camp at the end of last summer, poof. 
That makes me sad; this post was going to be a tribute to two girls who
helped me a lot last summer, but since I don’t have the pictures handy
I’ll have to think of something else.

The job update:  I had my interview at the Apple store, and it
went absolutely brilliantly.  Sadly, I have to have another
interview, sometime this week I hope, but they haven’t got back to me
yet.  I feel extremely confident about it, and so now I’m just
doing the maintenance at camp for a little extra cash till I get my
“real” job.

I don’t know if everyone who reads this has seen my sweet action vehicle.  Her she is.  She doesn’t have a name.

Furthermore, I’m really excited, that in a few days, this too shall be mine:

Thoughtful about a whole lot of things, but you’ll have to ask me about them in person. Or online.

This girl is currently stalking me, or maybe I’m stalking her. 

Really, video chat online is uber-fly.  She think I only talk to
her because a) I might like her someday or b) She’s shorter than I
am.   Am I really that shallow?  Hmm, probably.  She’s a good one to stalk though, I’m glad I did.

In other news, the past week I had decided that I was going cross
country.  A weeks worth of contacting the Apple store led me to
believe there was no hope for a job there.  I talked to a lot of
people who didnt seem to know what they were talking about. 
Finally one girl told me the manager I’d been in contact with had just
hired four other people, and that now he would call me if there was a
position open ever, which was unlikely in the near future.  That
led me to believe that it was unlikely for a position to be open in the
near future.  Silly me.

So I got a job doing maintenance at my camp; the guy just quit, and
it’s a bad time cause there’s tons of stuff to get ready for it. 
I ran into Bonnie, my camp director, at the Outback Steakhouse this
weekend, and got the job. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s
money.  So, I was going to do that until camp started the end of
June, then work two weeks at camp because I love it…then take
off!  See the country!  Visit your house, eat your food, and
sleep in your bed.  Erm, on the couch.  But again, silly me.

The guy from the Apple store called this afternoon, between me killing
weeds and mulching.  He said sorry for taking so long, but he
wants to schedule my interview now.  He said whoever said there
were no positions available lied.  So now, next Wednesday I have
an interview.

Objectively, this is great; was my dream job, really.  But I had
so resigned myself to not getting it, and gotten so excited about going
around the country…I honestly wasn’t thrilled when I got the
call.  I think I’d just convinced myself I’d never get a chance at
getting it, and gotten too excited about going cross country.  But
the more I consider it, the more I know that I really should take it,
and so now I hope the interview goes well.

Bekah and Bethany tell me they are gonna laugh in my face if I don’t
get the job because i don’t wear a suit to the interview, but I’m not
going to.  Here’s me and a some of my studlike buddies from high
school.  We clean up pretty nice eh??

I wonder if anyone reads these during the summer….

I join in those young youths who are working on gettin summer jobs!!
After my short story, I submit a thought for your thinking pleasure…

Most just want to work at the Apple store in the Palisades mall. 
Guess only NJ/NY people know where that is…and Apple computers, not
fruit.  Sheesh, selling fruit all summer, how awesome would that
be.  But I keep calling and not getting anywhere. We’ll see. I’m
hoping it works out.

But if it does not…take off cross country?  Who wants to
come?  There can be a few of us.   Cross-genderal is
allowed.  Mostly, it’s blowing off the summer (in a blowing off
the capitalist pigs! sense) and going to wherever, getting odd jobs
here and there, it’s all up to whatever I suppose. I really want to go
meet people in cities.  Work in churchs.  A pretty sweet way
to serve God all over the country and have a blast…really we could do
anything, and maybe not even plan to do anything.  Would anyone be
up for that?  I’d leave in a few weeks and sell a bunch of stuff
to get some money for gas…otherwise, the road is our friend. 
Anyone up for it?  Or just tell me why it’s dumb like most
people=)?  We could play sweet music like the Allman Brothers and
the Beatles and U2 and Avril Lavigne.

This is my new blog. 
Most of you won’t care at all.  I bet none of you will.  And
less than none of you will understand it.  uberMac geeks
only.  Tell your hot sisters about it, and they’ll be impressed
with my computer hacking skills.  Don’t worry, for you commoners
who don’t understand it, this blog will still be updated.  Need to
keep the masses happy so I’m not impeached.

Here’s a picture of when I used to do social things like go to other towns proms.

And apparently I’m not currently reading or watching anything because of a flagrant system error.

Edit: I’m tired of not finishing the whole free iPod thing.  Go here.
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=13328914
Complete an offer.  Finish this thing for me. Need 2 more referrals.  It’s not a joke.

I saw this visitor to campus being harrassed by these two girls. 
It was terrible and disgusting.  Then he went on a date with the
one on the right.  (The one on the left was too busy making racial
slurs to be asked out, even though she is stunningly attractive).  I talked to this fine fellow afterwards
and discovered that his name was Stuart, and he was a prospective
student. 

Stuart told me that he was homeschooled, but that he was definetly the
most popular of his 11 siblings.  He figured since he was so
popular in high school he definetly would be in college, and was
already making plans for a lot of girls dating him.  He also met Blake,
who taught him something about being cool and living in Brock. 
His favorite color is yellow, and he likes daisies, if you want to buy
him a present.

This post is entitled, “Some Reflections on Chaplainship”, and is dedicated to Debbi
and is not a Fluffy Postâ„¢.  Just some things I was thinking about,
lying in bed, then realized hey, it’s only 1:21 (when this started
being written) and it doesn’t matter if I have circuits at eight. 
Here’s some random, valuable lessons learned.  And maybe you can
learn something too, or have something to think about.

Some things first:

– A lot of work goes into chapel.  (duh)

– If you put a lot of work into chapel, “chapel sucks” becomes a
personal attack, and can really become upsetting.  This isn’t
necessarily all a bad thing; chapel may in fact “suck”, and that may
very well be a reflection of what I or whoever ran/spoke at/led
selected sucky chapel’s ability to do chapel.  However, saying it
at other times is simply a bad thing.

-Stated sucky chapel may not in fact suck.  You may just not like it.

-Love covers over a multitude of sins.  If love can cover that,
can it also cover over a boring speaker, or a unstellar musical
performance?

With that said…I personally became extremely discouraged about
chaplainship fairly quickly.  Chaplains (or at least me) recieve a
good deal of what I call “hate mail”.  It’s not fair to call it
that; a small portion of it really is constructive, and even though it
pointed out flaws or things that could be improved, I really appreciated
it.  Most of it, though, is, “I don’t like how you do this”, or “I
think this is bad”.  Not in constructive ways; simply in ways
people don’t like and they feel the need to express their
opinions.  Again, nothing necessarily wrong with that; but, for
some reason, it’s not just expressed as opinions.  It’s expressed
in biting and/or sarcastic remarks.  Very, very little
encouragement is recieved, and I was hugely, hugely blessed by those
who sent me a smile face or words of encouragement.  It kinda
works the opposite of how its supposed to…those small encouragements
balance out a dozen negatives.  They’re ubercool.

So, it seems people are typically critical.  We all know this
isn’t christian love; I’m not going to lecture about that.  But, I
love God, and I do my best to follow where he’s leading me, whether it
be for or against popular opinion or style.  I would venture to
say that is safe to say about the majority of our chapel speakers as
well.  So, if love covers over all those sins, doesn’t it cover
over our dislike of chapel style, or chapel speaker?  Do we have
to point out how bored we were with the chapel speaker, or can we say
“Hey, it weren’t my style, but dag yo, I’m so glad he cares so much
about God and wants to express it.”  Some people grew a bit weary
of “Light in the xxxxxxx”, thought it superficial, and not what they
needed.  Yeah, I felt the some way at times; but is there a need
to be biting or rip it apart?  I think everyone agrees Billy B is
a solid guy, and we like him.  Let’s praise God for having a stud
as prez and who speaks the truth as some people really do need to hear
it.  People sometimes have a habit of skipping Rohm’s chapels, all
of them.  Is it really the end of the world to sit through
something you don’t like?  Do you even listen to what he
says?  There is a lot of truth there, whether you’re brain is
online with him or not. 

I’m doing a poor job of trying to get out whats in my head. 
Experiencing being chaplain gives a new perspective of encouragement
and criticism.  I have a hard time criticizing  speakers
now.  This isn’t to say if they have a flagrant system error, I
don’t say “Hey now, you be wrong.”  Definitely  done that a
few times.  But God judges the heart…look at the heart of the
speakers.  If someone messses up a word and uses a completely
wrong phrase in chapel…yah sometimes its funny, especially when it
means the completely opposite of what they were trying to say. 
But you KNOW what they were trying to say; why can’t you take that and
run with it.  It could just as easily be you up there lookin like
a tool.

I keep getting off track.  Think about chapels, more importantly,
chapel speakers.  Be broken enough not to whine about it, to see
if they are genuine in their passion, and rock-solid in their
truth.   Pray for them!  If they’re not the most
exciting speaker, get over it and listen to what they have to
say.  It’ll build your character.  There’s better things to
whine about.  For me, I whine about things like Foundations class,
which really undermines my point anyway.  I’m not saying all
chapel speakers really are worth listening to…just, think about if
they are a little more thoughtfully, with a little stronger dose of
thought, and a lot stronger dose of love.

Jon Kragel is next years chaplain for Class of ’07; I don’t know what
the other ones are, but you’ll all find out soon.  Jon’s email is
jrkragel@cedarville.edu .  That’s especially important after next
year gets rollin.  Bless his chaplainship; volunteer to do
things.  Be friendly to him.  Send him encouragement. 
It’s difficult being a leader; things I would casually discuss with my
friends suddenly must be researched for hours in order to make sure
every word I would speak in front of my class was completely accurate;
how dare I presume to misinterpret God’s word when a little more study
would have shown the truth.  How dare I give God less than 100% of
my passion for doing it and my mind in speaking the Truth. Think of how
those who speak have to deal with that burden.  And love each
other.