They asked for a blog entry...

If any of you get the C.S.L. reference in the title of this blog, good for you. For those that don't, don't kill yourself o'er it. So, right now its 6:30am and here I am blogging. I didn't sleep a wink last night. When I came home last night, I found my roomates smoking cigars in the house. Needless to say, the entire house (including my room and clothes I am wearing right now) smelled like baked horse shit...) I was more than a little displeased by the smoke, what I could make of it, because I also have a head cold...which wasn't helped by the house being filled with clouds of flaming-horse-shit-smoke. I actually can't express how angry it made me. It just seemed inconsiderate. disrespectful...a sort of 'f*** you' to the other two human beings in the house. In retrospect, as I raged quietly in my room I began to realize how angry, sullen, and withdrawn I have allowed myself to become lately. Why had it made me so angry, why couldn't I just go talk to them about it? Why am I so hateful? The truth is, I don't know...Which in itself is frustrating because I am very used to being able to look inside myself, and understand what is going on. My own feelings and behaviors have never been a mystery to me. Not so anymore... I won't lie. New England sucks. It would suck to be here even without my sinful predilection for the easy taking of offense. Nonetheless, I have never met a more vulgar, inconsiderate, and downright uncivil people than the sort that live around here. (A few shining lights that are contra what I said above: Calvin, Marie and Bob at work; several of my professors who are New Englanders; and Mary Anne the events coordinator at the Hilltop Steakhouse, these people are great, and not just because they take care to be 'nice' but because they are actually kind people) To return to my aforementioned topic: I am really stressed out lately, I am afraid. I don't know if I can do this. Why isn't my paper done yet? Why wait this long? Because every time you write a theology or philosophy paper you have to re-invent the wheel. What if my ideas are terrible? What if the wheel I've crafted for Professor So-and-so for the umpteenth time is square in his opinion? I got straight A's last year, and even now I seem to be 'doing OK.' Regardless, OK isn't good enough. I have to get my GPA up, its hovering around 3.5 right now because of Greek this past summer. (Oh how I loathe that language!) There is no option for me, no other way forward. No one favors me, no one is handing me free money or opportunities. I shouldn't be surprised though. This is how it has always been. This is it, and there is no parachute or safety net. I am out the door and flying. And if I don't fly I will fall. So yeah, I think stress could be part of it. I feel under the gun all the time. I haven't had a day free from worry in months. All I do is worry. My horizons shudder, then expand or contract jerkily with each grade I get back. In reality, I can't wait for this to be over. A PhD program (Lord speed the day) seems like a cakewalk compared to this. No Starbucks, just a solid 8 or 9 hours every day writing and reading in a libary, then home for food and family (or out for a beer with friends perhaps in lieu of that!) No threat of constant failure in the classrrom or reprimand at work hanging like a blade over my head. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I sure hope and pray that God doesn't leave me alone in this, because if He doesn't strengthen me, I'm lost.
On a MUCH happier note, my good friends Joe and Carissa just got married yesterday afternoon. I was wrangled into a few more things that I originally planned to do, but I didn't really mind. It was a honor to be included in their big day. As Ben said, "...they are part of our community, and once you are helping in a wedding at all, you are in all the way." Besides, I got a free steak dinner out of it too, how could I go wrong? In all honesty though, it was a nice, small ceremony, beautiful and relatively simple. (at least from the perspective of someone who wasn't involved with the planning, haha!) It was great to be a part of it, and ushering was fun because I was privy to all the minor and entertaining mishaps without being responsible for any of them! It's neat to see the working of God in our lives as a community-as a group of friends that has welcomed Joe, no longer a M.I.T. but a full Midget. Haha. Carissa, our sister and good friend is married now. Praise God. Every time I go to a wedding something 'deep' usually strikes me, and this time was no different. In a world composed of so much triviality, where shameful vanities are the crowns we wear, and pointless dissipations form the foundations of who we are, Joe and Carissa have done something altogether serious and meaningful. Not a morose seriousness (the kind I am most likely to exhibit!) but a joyful seriousness. A solid-ness of life and meaning that comes from commitment to something, and the deep satisfaction that goes with it. Promises made and kept in the face of a world that can't remember the oathes it has made, and would not fulfill them if it could. It doesn't get any better. Amen and amen. I pray Joe and Carissa would be blessed and cared for by God.
Hmm, what else is going on? Oh yes, the reason I am up before dawn blogging? Yeah, I 'got up' at 4:45 this morning to go to work at Starbucks, only to discover upon getting there that I opening TOMORROW morning not THIS morning. It's moments like these where I am really glad I can laugh at myself, because with all the dumb things I do, I can either laugh or be miserable. I prefer the latter. So, here I sit in the Great Room, drinking some tea, hoping to muster the intellectual gumption to write a paper today. Nonetheless, this could be a blessing in disguise, even now as the sunrise is reaching my windows, I feel some faint energy...and so I am off to write this silly paper, lest it thwart my impending vicrory on the field of academic battle.