Christmas Time

Christmas time is coming around! It's December 4th and stuff. I like the spirit of the holiday. I know the purpose of the holiday, which is to remember and celebrate the day of Jesus' birth (which was nowhere near this time of the year), but still, I guiltily feel more significance from the holiday's general feeling of togetherness. It's a day of gift-giving and I have already ordered and received some of the gifts I'm going to give to my friends. However, if I think about it, a big part of me is not giving these gifts for the sake of giving gifts.

Actually, I'm giving these gifts for the sake of getting the credit of giving these gifts to my friends. More specifically, I'm giving these gifts to assert my friendship to my friends. Basically, I'm showing my friends that, "yes, I'm such a close friend to you that I buy you Christmas gifts." It's a selfish way of giving gifts. I'm doing it for the sake of my receiving a sense of intimacy with my friends. In the same way, I want to receive gifts so that I get the message from my friends saying, "Yes, you are a close enough friend that I went through the trouble to buy something for you." I find security from the fact that I'm loved from my friends and I'm just looking for that feeling of security in hoping for receiving gifts on Christmas. It doesn't really seem right... I think a lot of people the way I do though.

Believe in the Power of Prayer!

Alright. For my junior year, I was scheduled to take CP Physics, being demoted from Honors Chemistry. My grades were not that great in Chemistry (chemistry starts with a C for a reason!) but I managed to pull it up to a B- by the end of the year, barely enough to be in the Honor class next year. However, my teacher still did not give me the approval to be in the Honors class for physics so I was scheduled to go into the CP class. Being set lower in classes would have been a large black mark on my college app and would have not helped my unsatisfactory GPA very much. So, my Mom and my brother told me to ask for a change. I sent emails to my guidance counselor, my chemistry teacher, and the Science Department Supervisor (or some fancy title like that) and prayed several times for my endeavour to succeed. And LO AND BEHOLD, today I recieved a phone call and email telling me that I was approved to attend Honors Physics and GLORY BE TO GOD who looks over me, blesses me, and takes care of me. I am happy. My brother is happy. I gotta tell my mom. HALLELUJAH! God is so GOOD.

In a State of Near Panic part 5

YES!!!! THE LAPTOP WAS FOUND HALLELUJAH!!!! THE LAPTOP WAS FOUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..... in the halls of my middle school..... just sitting there. Very strange that it should be there seeing as I am pretty sure I have never brought it there. But it's found, and there will be no fine. And everything is just hunky-dory and I actually have not been thinking about it too much lately so I cannot really say it is a load off my mind, but whatever. Everything is cool now.

Motivation and Action

Well, I am back from my retreat and I feel spiritually refreshed and I heard some things there that I needed to hear particularly during the last sermon. I was blessed indeed. My voice is still recovering. Anyway, I have been thinking. Or should I say, I have thought. In many cases and times of my life, I have pondered introspectivally and tried to figure more stuff out about myself. Now, am I a monk, like my new haircut suggests, who goes to mountains every weekend to meditate and unlock the mysteries of life and consciousness? No, but I do give myself the occasional delving into the mind moments. One thing I have figured out about myself specifically is the motivation behind the things I do, the words that I say, and the way that I act. The start of this may have occurred back in middle school when a girl said that I am just doing something for attention. Now, back then, I guess I did not really understand what that meant, but upon further thought, I realized that she was correct. I do things with the sole intention of receiving attention from others. This is not a conscious intention, but an inborn desire which influences what I do. For a long time in my life, I have been called annoying and I have been hurt many times and have wondered why people call me that and why I act in such a way which people would brand me to be annoying. Now, I think I have the answer. Simply speaking, my desire for attention made subconsciously has made my actions become very clingy, obnoxious, and unappealing to others. At least, that's my theory. Then you would imagine that because I have this knew information regarding what has been causing my socially unacceptable behavior, my problems with my behavior would have faded away right? Wrong. Just because I know the source of my problem does not mean my problem goes away. Fairly speaking, I have been filtering myself more than before through this knew knowledge and many people no longer brand me to be annoying anymore, but I know that my current behavior still resembles very much what it has been before. Basically, I have matured.

Well, that was one example of how my introspective thought proccess works. Here is another. In my recent years, a new activity has piqued my interest: arm-wrestling. Yes, arm-wrestling, a match between two people of strength, endurance, and technique. However, I have noticed that I am a little more interested in arm-wrestling than others. That brought up the question: why. Right now, my answer to that is that my desire for glory and victory incite me to search for opportunites to potentially win and gain the feeling of winning and the applause of others. In fact, that same desire seems to also motivate my recent endeavour for learning how to fight. Biblically speaking, this is wrong. The actions themselves are, in my opinion, not sinful, but my motivations seek my own glory and is an example of pride. So, I would like to say that I have stopped arm-wrestling for the sake of winning glory, but I still do occasionally and I still try to learn to fight, but not for glory, but instead, for practical purposes. No I am not getting into fights. I mean in the event of ever getting into a fight, I would be able to stop it or at least keep myself from becoming too damaged. Also, in a wild scenario, in the future, I could fall in love with a girl and I could find her as a damsel in distress in oppression of these punks about to attack her and I could swoop in and save the day and get married and have kids and live to be a  ripe old age with a loving wife by my side all because I started learning how to fight...... Yeah, that's probably never going to happen, but one can dream.

Craving

See, I have this craving. I've known that I have had this craving for a long time. I kind of mentioned it before, but actually, my brother brought it up today. He was explaining how I'm not socially capable and I will need to get out of the safe bubble I am in right now to learn how to be more socially acceptable. I completely agree with him. But stuck in my mind is what he said about friendship. He explained how most friendships are about what you give and what you get. What do you have to offer me? Social standing? Connections to more friends? Wisdom? What can I give you? And the key point is when he talked about genuine friendship, the frienship that lasts and does not rely on what can be gained or given and has intimacy, perseverence, committment, and brotherly love. He explained the two examples of that friendship in his life. Then he asked me who I have with that kind of relationship. Not wanting to seem empty-handed, I gave a couple of names of good friends of mine, but I knew that I did not have that kind of relationship with them. And that is what my craving is.

     I have consciously known for a long time that I want a "best friend" and unfortunately, while I may have many "good friends," none of them really have that serious brother-to-brother relationship with me. In fact, I've thought about who could be potential best friends and pondered on how I could get closer to them and tried to interact with them more and more and stuff like that. Right now, I can not say I have made much progress, but still, I have prayed about it. Honestly, I would probably choose a best friend over a girlfriend or a thousand dollars or the best sudden growth in drumming skills. What really stinks is that I have more friends that are girls than guys and girls are too much trouble to be best friends with.....

In a state of Near Panic Part 3

Alright, finals are finally over. I am done and the summer is about to officially start. My laptop situation is.... better. My parents know and they did not flip out or anything. They took it pretty well that my laptop was stolen. I told the vice-principal and stuff and the police are involved and there is a tracker on the laptop. I mean, with those three people and things, you would think that they would have found it by now right? It's been around four days, maybe five since I've notified them, but the vice-principal has not told me any new information about it. I'm starting to think that this could end with a fine and that is making me a little anxious.

In a State of Near Panic Part 2

My laptop is still missing and I was supposed to hand it in yesterday. I filed a theft report. I don't know how things will play out. The laptop is a Macbook so the fine will be around $1000 I heard. That's a big number. Personally, I do not know if I lost it or if someone stole it so I'll just have to hope that the administrators think that someone stole it and maybe let me off the fine. I did not tell my Mom or Dad yet. See, I know that they will be mad. I know that they will be extremely mad. I also know that right now is not the best time for a thousand dollar fine to come around because it's been only a couple of months since they got their diner. I just pray that everything will turn out alright.

In a state of near panic

So where am I right now? I am at the library. Why am I at the library? It's complicated. I have a situation right now. My school gives out laptops to its students right? Every start of the year, they had them out and every end of the year, they take them back. Well, my laptop is currently missing and I have to hand it in tomorrow. How much does that suck right? I thought one of these two people I was talking to took it by accident, thinking it was his, but after a long ordeal of many phone calls and texts (the two people were surprisingly difficult to reach), I found out that neither of them had taken it. Now, I am absolutely SURE I had it with me after school because I showed my teach something on after school. What I don't remember is what happened to it afterwards. I remember that I walked to the lobby of the school from the classroom without going anywhere else. I stopped for a drink from the fountain maybe before or after I got to the lobby. I stood with some friends and talked. My brother showed up with his car, and I reached down to pick up my stuff and my laptop is missing..... Stinks right? Well, my brother was not too happy with that and my brother started rebuking me and usually I would take his rebuking with silence, but this time, I talked back. I may have done that because a couple of my friends were there and I did not want to seem weak or maybe it was because I knew that I had kept track of my laptop until the last few moments and I felt some injustice from this rebuking. So, the argument went on. It was not some crazy argument. It was pretty controlled. We were in school after all. We don't even really have too many arguments anyway. I'm straying off point. So, Sam and I got in the car after the arguing and I started trying reach the two people I suspected of accidentally taking my laptop. I had to find the phone number of one of them from her friends and the other one did not pick up his phone. It was hard but after a while, I found that neither of them took my laptop. I called the school. The guy told me that it would probably show up tomorrow and if it didn't, I would have to talk to the vice principal or something like that and there may be a fine. Overall, he told me not to worry and that laptops usually turn up when lost. Sam wants me to come home with the laptop in hand, but obviously, from the looks of things, that is not going to happen. I realize that some more rebuking is coming my way. However, I am not panicking. I am nearly panicking, but not losing my head right now. I prayed to God and I know that He has helped me out MANY times before. He created all the chemistry, physics, and matter necessary to create my functioning laptop. I am SURE He can bring it back to me if it was His plan. Maybe I just have to wait or maybe He is about to punish me for having lost that laptop. Either way, I hope His Will is done. I also hope that His will includes that I find my laptop today. I know that this is not the end of the world. I just need to stick it out. Man, anyone who reads this before Friday tomorrow, please pray for me. Maybe even after Friday, still pray for me. Maybe God listens to the future prayers to affect the past right? Please. I'm actually worried right now.

Me and my Week

From Monday to the middle of Friday,
I wait for the second half of Friday to Sunday,
From the second half of Friday to Sunday,
I dread the next Monday to the middle of Friday,

From Monday to the middle of Friday,
I have to sit in a chair and walk in the halls of a school,
Indeed, classes are slow and boring, but that is not the worst part,
I know that some people would kill to be able to have my education anyway,

No, the worst part is that I am not loved,
I am met with disregard, dislike, or casual friendship,
I live through five school days of this place void of intimacy for me each week,
I am not especially bullied, harassed, or hated, but neither am I especially loved.

Then I come to Church on the weekend,
On Friday, I enjoy the company of my loving friends at Friday Night Worship,
I wrestle with one of them regularly, I share many laughs with all of them,
I learn more about God through them, I learn more about music through them,
I learn more about myself through them, I learn to love through them,
On Saturday, I go to Church to meet some friends to go to a home for handicapped adults,
We volunteer, sing songs, and just have a great time with the residents,
On Sunday, I know that the weekend will soon end and I want to prolong my stay at Church,
But still, despite my desires, I stay there for a long time, but I go home in the end,

Frecuently, my weekends do not leave me satisfied,
This one time, we had to leave very early on Sunday and that just left me so disappointed
What happens often is that someone or many people I love at Church have problems and the mood is changed and it becomes hard to feel the love that I crave each weekend,
But the strange thing is, God is supposed to be enough right?
Why is it that I do not feel satisfaction in Him who has greater Love for me than anyone else in the world?
Why is it that I turn to anyone but Him to love and be loved?
Why is He not the food I hunger for and the drink I thirst for most of all?
Why do I not accept the Love that He has to give for everyday of the week?

Sin sucks

Well, this is my first blog really. I don't really know why I'm doing this, but if you're reading this, then I hope you get something out of this.

I gotta say: sin sucks. You know what makes sin feel worse? When you sin and you know you are sinning. You know what is even worse? When you sin and you know you are sinning and you do not care. That seriously stinks. Alright, I've been having a problem with this particular sin for months now. It's pretty bad. It's pretty hard to stop. I think I do it more often when the conditions of my life are not exactly ideal. Like, when I am at school. I have friends at school. Actually, I have, like, about three friends at school. Everyone else I socialize with are just people I use to make sure I am not by myself. However, the thing is, just as those people are my peripheral friends, I am also their peripheral friends. By peripheral friends, I mean, on the side friends. We do not really love each other. We tolerate each other. Well, they tolerate me. I used to be really annoying as a middle school student and I'm still a bit annoying today. Sometimes, without knowing, I speak too loudly or keep on talking or just act in an irritating manner. It's not easy to fix. So, obviously, while they like me enough to give me a place within their group, I do not feel like I truly belong with cliques. Am I a total loser? I used to be. Not really today. I actually have MANY peripheral friends. Anyway, this entire situation at school kind of makes me unhappy so I tend to sin that particular sin because of how I feel (I think). And it has been going for an extended period of time so I feel like the guilt and how much I care about doing this sin has decreased somewhat. The guilt used to be pretty intense, but now it's simmered down to a passing emotion almost. That in itself saddens me.

This entire post seems like a giant pity party to me. I should learn to end on encouraging, happier notes.