Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Images

Burning bush - I have been thinking about the song Standing Still by Jewel, and listened to it the other day on YouTube. It has a line about "there's a dead end to my left, there's a burning bush to my right." I was thinking about that line mostly because at the moment everything I try to do seems to come up a "dead end", and it seems that every time I turn around from that, God's got a burning bush on the other side. Tonight Leonard Sweet talked a little bit about part of his new book coming out called "Every Bush is Burning".

Black hole - Today, earlier, I think it was, it might have been yesterday, I was thinking about black holes. You know, the ones in outer space that suck everything close to it inside. And I started thinking, not in some weird depressing metaphoric way, but I started wondering where black holes go, and how we see them, and what happens to all the stuff they hoover up from space. I got some picture in my mind of a black hole warping everything around it and everything just disappearing inside. Well, tonight I was at SG and this one guy that I've met while on work orders because he does stuff in the science building, was talking about black holes. He was talking to a lot of people, and was going around from table to table. I'm not sure what he was talking about all the time, but the subject of black holes came up in two of the conversations that I heard a snippet of.... actually all I heard was "...black holes..." I finally asked him about it as I was leaving with Megan to go to Chapel for the evening session. He said he had a dream last night about a black hole, just randomly. So I guess he was studying them now with a new fervor or something. I'm not sure. But he said he dreamed about one. And I was thinking about one earlier today, or not that long ago.

Coincidence? Well, since there's no such thing as coincidences, which Dr. Bob talked about in Senior Year Experience a bit today... What's the meaning behind it?

The burning bush I can get. I think that God has been doing everything short of throwing one at me lately. I can be dense sometimes... sometime moreso spiritually than anything. But the black hole? What is a black holes significance? That things are there that are still there, but are so densely packed that where they are looks black to us from Earth because it is so much packed so tightly, and yet everything still exists? It can't really go anywhere, so it's all there, in the black hole... according to what the guy I spoke with tonight said... and I vaguely remember something to that extend from watching Bill Nye the Science Guy as a kid. One image that popped into my head when thinking about black holes earlier was Bill Nye and the funny graphics they used to simulate him going into a black hole, and the warp speed that mass reaches when introduced into one. The guy I spoke with said that some research suggests that black holes lead to other dimensions.... which is very interesting.

So, I'm not sure what to think about any of this at the moment. I really just needed to get this out on "paper" in a written format to try to get it in some kind of order.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Another long and rambling, venting post....

Nothing seems to be working right at the moment.

My car just broke down sort of the other day. Took it in to the mechanic. Now I can't get it back because I don't have the money right now to pay the bill. I told the mechanic that I would have to do some kind of payment plan or something. Right now I am carless and moneyless. I just got my paycheck from Bethel from the pay period right before break I guess. Only $52. My bill for my car, $378. I feel like life has run me over with a steam roller, and then rained down a ton of bricks just for the fun of it. I asked my parents to front me the money I need to pay my car bill. I am going to be paying them back out of each paycheck the next few months, since my paychecks are not that big to begin with. I just hope that working more hours will help. I won't see the new years paychecks until later on though, probably two paychecks from now. I need to fill out my tax forms and get them in so whatever I get back from that can go to my parents, coz they are lacking just about as much as I am.

My computer also just got another line showing up in it. I'm not sure if I will still be able to get a computer or not with the loan money left over from this semester. I'm not sure how I'm gonna be able to make it through the rest of this school year, and then after graduation (if that even happens at this rate) what I'm going to do, if my parents will let me stay with them and get a job in E-ville, or what.... I can't afford anything right now, I apparently can't handle my money that well, and taking the Dave Ramsey class this semester seems to be showing me just how much I've already screwed this whole finance thing up already, especially with my car stuff going on right now and not having anything in the bank to use, because my "emergency fund" has been drained from having to pay all kinds of other emergency things in the past few years dealing with my car I had then.

Car trouble just seems to find me at just the right moments to throw me off balance, and make me feel like I can't do this. The whole budget thing, being organized with stuff like that, making it through what is supposed to be my last semester of college. We'll see about that one. I want this semester to be over, but I have no motivation to even look at my homework. That, and I can think of so many other things that I need to get done before I try to get a job at home after graduation. Things I don't have the money for. A professional wardrobe being one of the things that actually worries me. Aside from the fact I hate wearing professional clothes, I don't really like shopping for them either. And I still feel like I'm not good enough to get a decent job with decent pay. Or that there are even any of those around the E-ville area.

Meh. That's all I've got for now.... today in Chapel we had Alisa Childers as our guest. She was in the group Zoe Girl. She sang a lot of her stuff from her new solo album. It was quite mellow, although it was an acoustic set. I just wish my mood hadn't been one to match it today. As the day today has progressed it has gone completely downhill. I'm worried about just about everything right now. I'm worried about how my parents are going to get by having loaned me the money for my car. I worry about how I'm gonna keep up with bills right now because of the car repair bill. I worry that I'm not gonna get my homework done for worrying too much about everything else, which has been the case most of the time so far this semester. I worry about not graduating on time.... or even being able to graduate this May. And the list could just go on and on right now.

And right now crying won't help and sleeping won't help, but I really do need to do both right now. I've been crying off and on this evening already. Now I just need to go to bed and try to sleep. Just pray that my dreams don't torment me with worry the way my thoughts have been lately with all of this worry.

Car problem - payment

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Feeling kind of stuck. Like I'm too far behind to get ahead.

Just trying to make it through all the homework and classes and stuff this semester so I can get out of here.

And then... well, I'm not sure about anything after that at the moment.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

trying to justify my thoughts on my computer....

Not much to report on here. I'm working on a couple of things for class tomorrow, but other than that, I'm not too busy.

It has been snowing here quite a bit. I should go get some pictures at some point. The snow will be around a while this week though. I might take Domo out later this week for some snow pics though. That would be fun. The snow tonight as I went to the Acorn to get dinner reminded me of walks with the girls through the years. The snow was just drifting down, a lot, but very light. I couldn't even hear it on the trees (maybe either because I didn't slow down much since I was cold and wanted to get indoors and was walking by myself, or because I have been to too many concerts in the past year or so and my hearing is headed downhill, I'm not sure which). Good memories, though.

I seem to have a lot on my mind right now, and am sort of unable to get it all out. One thing I've been thinking about it getting a new computer. I have some loan money left over that I can get from the school. That would be really good to get a new computer, because the laptop I have is impossible to do anything with. As I have said before, the HD is too small and I can't find a ATA HD anymore, just SATA which is a completely different connection. The screen now has 9 lines running vertically through it at various points, which makes looking at just about anything on the computer bothersom. It run fairly decently for what it is, but if I try to look at a Java or Flash intensive site it bogs down like a lead weight in quicksand. Then programs close, or it freezes, or both at the same time. The fact that one of the fans has gone out on it doesn't help any. I also can't do my homework on it because I don't have Office on here. I can only use Google Docs, which does not exactly transfer to Office very well as it has some formatting issues. I hate using Office to begin with, or anything like it, but I have to, and if I'm going to I want things to look right... because professors don't like looking at something that isn't formatted correctly either. I want to get a computer that I can use for more than just browsing websites. I like to take pictures, and would like to edit them, but I can't do that on my computer. Any programs I would like to use are too large for my puny 20GB HD. Currently I run things from my external USB HD. That also slows down the computer, and not everything will run from that.... So.... I have some funds left from my loan, since it was estimated over instead of under, and I can get that from the school, and I am going to use it to get a new computer. I really need something that functions well. One might say that I could use my Mac that I have. But it is also an older model, and currently serves as a very large and stationary iPod. It is basically my music storage computer. I think I have put most of my CD's on there.... except for some that I just got from a prize pack I won from YS. Anyway, that's what I want to do. Maybe I'm crazy. There are definitely other places I could use that money, but seeing that my computer is just about to kick the bucket it seems, and has lost just about any bit of functionality it could have had, I really think that getting a new one will help. And I will be less bothered by trying to open documents from professors, and writing my own papers and such. That part really frustrated me right now. I can't open any kind of document that professors send without going to the computer lab, which although I work there, it is a pain to have to go down just to open one or two documents.

So.... there you go... a slight update, and a slight bit of what's been on my mind as of late. Well, one of the many things that's been on my mind lately... And maybe I am being rediculous... I don't know. I'm just tired of being held back by old technology.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Rambling thoughts... very rambling thoughts

Everything right now seems so far removed from this last year. Except for the homework and the dread and anxiety over all of that...

I wonder what this new year holds.

Almost everyone else I know is going places in life, friends and family alike... and sometimes I feel like I am stuck at Bethel, and stuck in Indiana. Not that Indiana is bad... I just want to do something besides be at Bethel with all of the stuff there that is making me not like the place. But I am a "super senior" and I supposed just about anyone could get frustrated with a place after 5 years of being there.

I suppose that my time of doing something will come. It sure doesn't feel like it right now. I just want to be done with Bethel and get my degree and leave and do something I enjoy. That will most likely involve computers. But how? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure where I will live once I graduate. My parents don't seem to want me to move in with them once I get out of school, even though my Dad told me that if I needed a place to stay I could come stay here. Well, maybe they will recall having said that... Who knows. I don't know what this year holds. Jobs are scarce across the nation. So will I be able to get a job when I graduate? What kind of job? I don't really want to work in retail. I'm not sure I have enough experience to become some sort of technician for any company or business. I sure don't have the degrees for it. Maybe the knowledge, and even that is shaky at times. As CKH put it, I know enough to know there's more I need to know. Because of that I really don't see my talent with computers as much as other people do. I don't usually think I'm that good with computers. Other people seem to think I am very good with them. But I don't know programming. I need to learn a lot more about electronics, LAN, networking, WiFi, digital communication... the list could go on of what I want to learn about. I just hope that someday I can actually make a living off of that knowledge and skill. Right now one of the things that frustrates me is that I don't have the money to get the tools to learn things on my own. I can't build my own computer right now coz I can't afford the parts. Otherwise I just might build my own little monster computer. I love hands on stuff. I also don't have the space to do anything at school.

Anyway... enough of that. This is probably sounding all too negative and pessimistic as it is...

I'm just not sure of what this year is going to hold. I spent most of this break trying to relax and get my mind off of school and classes and the new dorm and stuff that has been bothering me. I still have to work on my paper before next Monday, so over the weekend of the new semester, since classes start on Thursday. I don't know how this semester is going to shape up. I think I failed my one class that I have to take for my degree that I don't even get credit hours for. I need to talk to the prof on that one. I have been trying to work on an e-mail to send him. I will have to organize my room once I get back to school, which won't be all that bad, I just hate going through stuff. It's time consuming... but it will take less time if I get it done, right?

I keep getting questions regarding what I'm going to do after Bethel. I really don't know. I don't have much of an answer. I want to do something with computers. I don't even know the job market for computer related work. I especially don't know how much of a market there is in the Evansville area.... or if I will even be in the Evansville area after I graduate. I definitely don't have the finances to go out and get an apartment somewhere and get a job in some new city. I don't even have the finances to do that in South Bend. I also don't exactly have connections with people to get an apartment with in South Bend or anywhere else for that matter at the moment. I don't even know people that know people right now.

One more semester. 14 more weeks, give or take a few days. I'm not even on the 365 bandwagon anymore to take pictures to document all of this life turmoil. I think that if I could pick a picture for what I see coming up ahead it would be a parachuter without a parachute... but who knows... maybe God is asking me to "find my wings" or something figure of speech like that. I definitely need to spend more time with Him though. I have not been spending as much time with Him lately and the lack of it is palpable.

Prince Caspian is coming to mind... the cliff... the older siblings not being able to see Azlan... the struggle in the sepluchre... and to draw from another book I enjoy... about being childlike and seeing with the eyes of a child...

Even today, in church, at the church I grew up going to, and that I went to this break because it was convenient, even though I still do not agree with the agenda of the preacher, and can't even follow half of what he says because it is like an hour long monologue of bunny trails... I still heard some truth in what he said, even just a small part of it... when he said something about how the things of God are foolishness to man... and I thought, "If only you knew"... and I can't even get myself to see some of what God has done in my own life and see the sense in it... although maybe sometimes everything does not have to make sense... we live in a world where people are caught up in make-believe... and we can't even believe the real... mostly because sometimes it seems like make-believe when it is real... OK... now I'm the one going on a rabbit trail... but my point is... I still have no idea what this year holds... I know that I just have to trust God... and I have to start doing things to continue to draw close to Him.

And if you got to this point in this long-winded-somewhat-pessimistic rambling of mine I'm not sure whether to thank you for reading or apologize that you had to read through all that... Even if no one reads it, I needed to write, and sort of vent, sort of get my thoughts out of my head and onto this sounding board that this blog kind of is, even if it doesn't get read.