Continental Breakfast

I should have been on a plane to Sydney right now, but instead I am in San Francisco. Most people in my situation would be surprised, discouraged and frankly “P.O.’d”.

Am I any of the above stated emotions?

No; I saw this coming.

Why?

Because now out of the last three flights I’ve had between Australia and America, 3 have gone wrong. You may have had to read that twice before you realized that 3/3 is 100% of my flights gone wrong. So right now I am in a complimentary Embassy Suites on some poor suckers wifi. I’ve got some free breakfast in the morning, a few more hours sleep, check out, try to not get lost in San Francisco(or P.H.O.B.’d) and then fly to Sydney tomorrow night at 10:30. Technically tonight at 10:30. Holla.

The lone causes of worry are:

• a potential late enrollment fee for college
• no ride from the airport
• a very smelly Andrew arriving in Sydney(not really a worry. more like a fact I’ve come to grips with)

oh my

I leave tomorrow for another year in Australia. I am excited. I keep reminding myself of that or else I get nervous and anxious. I will miss you all.

reading:

psalm 23

Learning

This last weekend was Jr High Winter Camp. I have been to almost 20 Jr High camps that have all been amazing, but this camp was honestly the best yet. There was an unspeakable awareness of knowing I was with God more than I had ever been before. I really wish I could explain it more. No one will be able to understand until they have had the same experience. If someone would have asked me if I have had that feeling before this weekend I probably would have said that I had. I wouldn’t have been very right. I really did learn a new side of having a relationship with God this weekend. I feel like for one of the first times in my life I actually tried to give God the praise he deserves. It all sounds pretty standard cheesy but it doesn’t feel standard or cheesy at all. It feels realer than it ever has, which is exactly what I need. I have never been much of a real person. I’m trying hard to migrate away from being so fake all the time and last weekend I tried to be very real with God and he was, in turn, able to be more real with me than I can remember. I am trying to see what it’s like to really center my life around Jesus. It’s not hard right now because there are recent memories in my head motivating me to do so. My goal is to not let time recoup the past. It’s easy right now to remember that God’s presence really is the most inordinate sense of satisfaction I could have; which makes staying away from a perversion of satisfaction in any form easier. Right now. But I have felt similar emotions before and I have seen them melt away into a hazy memory of God being a pretty good idea that will help me sometimes. That is my challenge I guess. Keep God real in my life. Not by fabricating memories or lying about experiences or being spiritual but by working on our relationship as if I were really trying to get to know someone. I don’t know how to wrap this up.

I am growing a mustache again

I leave for Australia in 4 days

Feel Good Lost

I only have 11 days left in America before heading back to Australia for another year, which is crazy because that means I have already been in America for more than 40 days. My emotions on going back are varying. I am more excited to go back than I ever was to go in the first place, probably because I have an actual something to go back to instead of the many obscure idea of something to go to like it was last year. I am also more sad to leave than I was a year ago because I know now how long a year away can feel when in the middle of the year, opposed to last year when I was in some ridiculous la-la-land thinking I had an iron heart. This year is definitely going to be awesome and I am excited and hopefully on the way to being ready for everything that God will do. And I still have a little less than two weeks here. Plenty of time to live it up. I better stock up on all the video games, taco bell, family, old friends, cold weather, and any actual good food of any sort before I leave……..because none of those will be within reach in two weeks…….12 days. Shandalodge.

listening:

Broken Social Scene-Feel Good Lost

M83-Saturdays=Youth

Thrice-The Alchemy Index

The Appleseed Cast-Peregrine

reading:

Ripley’s Game

10 Books That Screwed Up the World

I smell smoke. Finally

So I’ve been pretty sick recently. Like two and a half weeks ago I started not feeling good one night and the next day I wasn’t really feeling good and that night I didn’t sleep good and the next day I felt worse and that process went on for about a week before I went to the doctor; each day feeling worse. I had pneumonia and a bad sinus infection, which leads me to the point of this post. I haven’t been able to smell or taste for like two and a half weeks. I don’t know if you’ve ever been congested enough where you can’t smell or taste, but it’s crazy. You never really feel like eating. I guess because you can’t smell anything to wet your appetite. Anyways, today I smelt and tasted for the first time and it was awesome. I’m getting better. Thank you antibiodics! The moral of this story is obvious. If you ever feel sick, you’ll get better. So suck it up

Promise revoked

Alright fools I’m back. It’s been a nice little break, I’d like to call it a long refreshing nap. I didn’t really have much of a reason to stop writing. I was making this harder than it needed to be as if there were critics scrutinizing everything I say on this. I would write out of a kind of skewed mind set too, always writing with some sort of mission in mind to impress and whatnot. But all is well and thank you to those who expressed your sadness in me not writing. I am planning on enjoying writing again and trying to do it consistently. No guarantees.

Ok so get this crazy news. When I  just logged in to my wordpress profile thing I looked at my stats and was like, “WTF!?!?!?” because I had like 25,000 views in the last month………..and I haven’t posted anything since like August. At first I thought that maybe I should just stay stagnant with the blog since it was more successful since I quit. But then I found out it was because of this:

Thank youuuuuu Macaulay. Apparently the holidays bring up some nostalgic feelings for people and they want to check up on their favorite Hollywood kid-stars. Then they are surprised and repulsed by their findings and can’t stop checking and re-checking this picture. You can expect a lot more of that picture in future entrys. Oh yeah and I didn’t mean it when I said wtf. I wouldn’t say that. I’m a Christian

Le Matin

Yann Tiersen’s affects on my life have been countless

I’m not afraid anymore

I am currently watching Home Alone while working on an assessment. Not too hard of an assessment easily becomes the most challenging thing in the world when you’re watching a movie that demands my full attention. I don’t want to miss one second of this gold. It makes me miss home and yearn for Christmas; both of which will be mine in not much more than three months. Christmas music……………….gets me every time.

As does this:

Hot

Not

It’s definitely becoming spring. My allergies are off the charts

#4

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

oops

sup

After nigh on one month I have decided to write again. I felt like I kept writing about boring stuff just to write something. I don’t know if that’s what I should do or if I should only write when I really have something to say. But some pretty cool/eventful things have happened; things worth mentioning.

Thing worth mentioning #1-I had a good midyear break with a couple trips into the city and a lot of lounging around the new place. Our house is now pretty rockin’. I got my bunk bed which is a tad teetery but still awesome and saves a lot of space. We have a big tv with a dvd player that can play dvd’s with any country code. We found the nicest couch ever down in the car park of the building where I live so we wiped it down and now have it……………I think that’s it. I bought a laundry basket………….that’s been nice. The only down side is we have to move out soon. Short lived

Thing worth mentioning #2-Friends from home came and visited for their vacation. They brought me some goods from the homeland that were well appreciated and we went to the zoo one day, had a couple meals together, went to a couple classes and a couple church services together. Huzzah

Thing worth mentioning #3-Two concerts in three days. Sigur Ros on August second was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. It was definitely the most expensive, so I was real glad. YouTube has captured a bit of the glory. Go here Gobbledigook and get a taste, especially from the 2:45 point and onward. That’s right………….confetti canons. On August seventh I got royally hooked up to see the Cold War Kids. Also a super rad concert but this time I paid a lot less. I paid nothing. That’s right………….guest list baby. One of my best friends’ sister knows them so she hooked it up.

Thing worth mentioning #3-I got a good job. I can work any day I’m able to and I get paid twenty bones an hour. It’s pretty rough. We’re getting all the scrap metal and salvageable material out of a building that’s going to get demolished. That means a lot of sledge hammering, angle grinding, wire clipping, 1,500lb motor dropping, wall smashing, and wound creating. But it’s awesome. The people I work with are cool and the boss is awesome. At the end of the day he always has a $100 challenge that is something ridiculous like trying to walk on a big barrel or a wheelbarrow race or something. It’s is a big time blessing

I don’t remember if I had anything else but I’m tired and am going to bed so that will be enough for now.

I’ll do better with the blog from now on……………maybe