You won't grow weary

Today in church, we were singing "Everlasting God", and one of the stanza's just hit me.

"You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You will not faint
You won't grow weary"

The last line of that made me think. No matter what, God is patient with us. He gives us unlimited "second" tries. Romans 2:4 says, "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" It's obvious that patience is a part of God's character.

Then I started to think about my own patience. I seem to loose my temper pretty quickly. I'm quick to get angry, to shout and curse. I let the smallest things get under my skin, irritate me, cause me to loose my temper and become upset.

I don't want to be short tempered, I don't want to be quick to anger, I don't want to be annoyed easily, to be upset at the small things. After all, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23)

oh my honor...

well, before i actually start, i'd just like to note that this is my 2nd blog in 2 days, so yay for me. :D and f.y.i. - if anyone knows of anyone hiring people, i'm in desperate need of a job, so let me know!

anyway... here we go...

this random train of thought stemmed from two things. the first was a job application i filled out for Costco. it's one of those weird ones with the personality/work ethic type quizzes at the end of it. one of the questions was "If you found a $50 bill in the parking lot as you were leaving would you..." with responses like "keep it" "turn it in to your manager" "turn it in to lost and found" etc... so keep that in mind, i'll come back to it.

the second item was a plaque that hangs in even classroom on the CU campus. It contains the Honor Code, which states, "On my honor, and a University of Colorado at Boulder student, I have neither given, nor received unauthorized assistance" (I didn't even have to look that up :D ).

I was kinda staring blankly at the plaque, waiting for class to start, when randomly I thought of that question from the application. And I thought to myself, "I'd probably just pocket it. That'd be awesome if I found $50." But then I started to think, what if I had lost that $50, I'd be screwed! $50 is kinda a big deal when you don't make a lot of money. In that case, I'd hope someone would turn it in.

Still following me? It's about to jump around a bit. This is how my head works. Then I started to think about the honor code and I thought, "Man, they should have you swear on something more than your honor, no one has any these days." Which is so true. Honor, in this sense, basically means doing the right thing, no matter how small the consequences for the wrong thing are. Even if there are no consequences, even if no one would ever know that you pocketed that $50 bill, even if no one ever caught you cheating on a quiz, even if you would get a way totally clean, you would do the right thing because it's right.

I wish I was like that. I wish that I wasn't the kind of person who would pocket $50 from a parking lot. I wish I had the kind of honor that people admire and appreciate. Maybe I should work on that...

Back to the grind, sort of

Well, it's back to the grind for gary. school started today. so far i've only had 1 class (philosophy and society, basically an ethics class), and I'm already over school. that's bad. but this semester, i've really got to push my way thru and get some good grades. i failed a class last semester (i've never failed a class before) and it's kinda freaking me out.

i always rationalize my C's by saying, "What the heck was CU thinking when they put Arts and Sciences together? I'm under the College of Arts and Sciences, so, even though I'm going to be a film major (I still need to change my major to that) I have to take 13 stinking credits of science classes. CU should know, Arts kids HATE science, and vice versa. I don't know what they were thinking.

But anyway, I really need to pull my grades up this semester, I've been slacking. I'm in college now. I need to get my crap together and actually read the material and study for the tests.

And now, on top of everything, I've got to find another new job. It seems like every semester I have to find a new job. So on top of being back in school, I have to get trained and used to a new job and schedule. It sucks.

And so now, I'm sitting in the UMC, bored already, and I started reading people's blogs. I've made an interesting discovery. People's blogs (the ones that I read anyway) make people communicate more introspectively. It seems like they're writing to themselves, flow-of-consciousness style, in a way that you wouldn't hear them talk out loud. It's kind of interesting.

Maybe I'll make it my (second) new years resolution to blog more. Maybe then I'll know a little more about what goes on inside my own head. I've always felt like I never know what's going on in my own heart and head. It's like my consciousness is too far separated from them, and it becomes very difficult to communicate to other people, or myself, what I'm feeling or thinking about.

I feel like a vegetable.

someone explain to me...

this is rather random, but i've kinda been mulling over this for a while...

i've never heard a solid explanation for all the persecution of communists (and the social stigma that's been attached to communism since) during the cold war. in all honesty, i sit there (on the bus, in the car, staring blankly at the computer at work) thinking, "what was that all about?". it seems to me like a group of people and a group of countries held a political/governmental ideal for themselves, and they were crushed for it. i understand that communism, at least the examples the world has seen, hasn't worked out all that great, and it is prone to corruption, but isn't democracy just as corrupt? instead of bribes, we call it lobbying. same thing.

So why have communists been persecuted, subjected to wars (not "liberations" mind you), ridiculed, become the but of so many jokes, and demonized? think about this. Jesus was a communist. the disciples were communists. they all lived in a community where they had nothing of their own and shared everything with everyone around them. i understand that cold war communism isn't exactly that, but it's the main ideal isn't it?

i guess it's just a random tangent that i've had in my head for a while. i want to know what you think. leave a comment

somewhat, but not entirely, like a blob

lately, i've been feeling really, really unproductive... it pretty much sucks. i have no classes i like, i got booted out of the one that would have saved my semester (a film class i was on the waitlist for, but didn't get in), and my job is boring (but bearable because of the pay and the long periods of time i'm usually able to be online), and i don't feel like i'm going anywhere.

i need to move on to the next phase of my life. I don't really know what that's going to look like; moving out, getting a job in my career field, something big like that. I do feel like i'm on the verge of something big like that though. I have been looking at apartments with a buddy of mine who wants/needs to move out of his parents house too. i just kinda feel like i'm stuck and i need to grow up some. i get little hints of things to come every once in a while, and i really like it.

let me just give you an example of the extent of my un-productive situation. i've started to compile an excell spreadsheet of all the movies i've ever seen. complete with titles, directors, writers, and release dates. that's right. so instead of listening to my philosophy, weather, or math lectures, i'm perusing IMDB looking for movies i've seen and copying the data in to excell. So far, i'm at around 250... and i've only just scratched the surface...

so, to sum up, i'm bored at life