I don't want to go, please don't make me

The hardest thing to do, is return to a place where you don't want to be.
Where there is nothing for you except a degree.
I would give anything not to return to that cold room with hallow men.
But alas this is my prison
My fate

First Thess Five 18

Today I am thankful for:
-God for all He has done for me and all that He will do for me. For protection and never ending love. For His son and redemption and for all the blessings he has given me
-My family who supports me and who is always there for me
-Grace, she is amazing and I am so thankful she is part of my life, even though she is 900 miles away
-Biola, there is no other school like it on the face of the earth
-My friends, for their honestly and smiles and for how they will laugh at all my stupid jokes
-Music, what would this world be without it
-The small gifts I've been given
-Health
-Being able to live in America
-The small amount of money I have
-For the guidance I have been given and now I have a plan
-For IRIS, the only way I could have graduated on time.
and much much more. I could go on but I need to go.

"give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you"

Letterman Jacket

T-minus two days until I am back in Livermore! I never thought that I would ever miss that place as much as I have this past week. I miss cool weather and friendly faces. There is something different about old friends, the friends I have at school are great as well as the friends I've made at camp; but nothing compares to a high school friend, one who shares so many amazing adventures. In honor of those high school friends, I dedicate this blog post to them. This is to Brad, for all the crazy adventures we have had. From spending the night at your house and going to the halloween stores the next day to see if we could get anything cheap, to the summer day where we bought snow skis and we down a dirt hill. I love making up folk punk songs with you and just seeing how crazy you can be. I've learned a lot from you, I've learned about how I shouldn't care what people think of me and that I should just be myself. You are a great friend and I miss you dearly.
This is to Kevin, a man whose friendship came at a much needed time. A man who is so chill and laid back that you can't help but what to hang out with him. I miss the times of going to your house and watching a movie. I miss ska shows and sitting on that porch talking, watching the cars go by. I miss sitting at the counter when you make yourself dinner. I miss your laugh and how it brings so much life to a room. This is for you.
This is for Davis, one of my longest running friends. You my friend are amazing and I have far too many memories with you. From writing a "hit" rap song, to sleeping on that couch in your living room on Saturday nights. This is for the time when we went to the cabin in Oregon. Your room and your house are so familiar to me and as I write I picture it vividly. I miss you man and I can't wait to hang out again.
This is to Sean, the only guy from LHS that I still talk to. This is for the time when we went to San Jose to the Asain market and we were the only white people in the place. This is also for the time when we went to Santa Cruz randomly one day and walking around downtown then having a bonfire at the beach. This is for all the time that we hung out with people that we didn't know but we still had a great time. Here's to the time when we drove from LA to Livermore late in the night and I feel asleep. Sorry about that. I am stoked that you live less than 2 blocks away.
There is a part of me that loves change, I love when the weather changes, I love when I change my dorm room around or get a new class schedule. Change is good, but there is still that part of me who wants things to stay the same forever and ever. But we need change, with change comes growth and growth leads us to who we are to be. Change with me has become a love hate relationship apparently. As I talked with a good friend from the days of old, I was reminded that change is good and was given this quote.
"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
Here is to change, may you keep me moving forward.

Ambling Alp

It's 1:34 am, I just wrote !:3$ by mistake, then corrected myself. It is late, my brain is tired, I've had a bad day.
Does one event in your day, send the rest in shambles? Well that is what happened to me today. You see I have this paper due, not just any paper mind you, but THE HARDEST PAPER I WILL EVER WRITE! Thus says the professor. I want to call his bluff, turn in some shotty ramblings that I pulled out of my lower section, but alas what if he is not the prankster prince that I formulated him to be? What if he aint yankin' my chain, or pulling me legs?! Then what am I going to do?! I already bombed the first test, worth 30 percent so this is one of my only hopes to salvage my grade. I know I will pass and I know I will write this paper, but I am so stressed out and afraid to write it that every time I sit down nothing comes out. I'm too afraid that everything I write is complete crap and that my professor will tear it up and yell with all his might "WHAT IS THIS AMATEUR HOUR?!!" He would then take my rhetorical analysis paper for comm studies 383 and feed it to his mighty basset hound. Sheer brilliance.
The problem is, I wrote over a page and a half yesterday, only to find out that I wrote on the wrong subject and had to delete it all. Excellent, I love it!
So now I'm stressed because I need to find 3 evidences in the film and I only have 1 maybe 2 and I can't think of anything and I just want to say THEY THEY THEY all i want and A LOT and HECKA and slang up the YA YA YA; but I can't because this is college and academia loves to kill creativity. Let's make everyone like us, suits, ties, and the whole shabang. Brilliant.

Coincidence?

To begin this post, let's travel back to August 8th, my last day at Redwood Camp. Upon leaving, I did not know if I would return. Many of my fellow counselors wondered if they would return and soon the prospect of returning became familiar conversation among everyone. As I drove under the arc that read "Continue in what you have learned" I wondered if I too would return. I thought that I had mixed feelings about returning, not knowing if there would be anything else for me to learn at the soil of RWC. I also like to keep my life fairly open in case God has other plans. As time went on I began to think about coming back to camp and it was not until recent weeks that I realized I wanted to come back. There was always a desire to return, but I wanted to make sure that my heart was in the right place and that I was returning for the right reason. I want to return for the kids, not for my girlfriend. After further thinking I realized that it would be so great to return, but still I was not sure if I would.
Then this week happened.
On Tuesday I was in my oh so boring Theo 2 class, when my friend place a business card on my desk. I didn't think anything of it, until I actually looked at it and read the name on the business card. It said "Cameron Reid". I froze and my jaw dropped, Cameron Reed was the name of one of my campers, one of my hardest campers. I thought it was weird, but then continued on with my day.
Wednesday I go to the morning chapel and the speaker talks about working at a camp for abused children and how we are to love those who have been hurt. This past summer I had a camper who was being abused. As I walked to class, I was reminded of the business card I saw the day before and shook my head because it was too weird. I then go to class and the professor talks about how there really are no "coincidences with God", I filed that in my memory then moved on.
Last night I had a dream where I was with the program director of the camp and was asking her if I had a job next summer and she told me to apply. I then asked her when the applications were ready. I woke up after that overwhelmed with the camp coincidences that were happening.
Then this morning as I walked to take a shower, my camper in leadership training, who just so happens to live on my floor, told me about his dream last night that I was back at camp with everyone else.
Wow, seriously, WOW.
This is all so odd and I really don't know how to take it. Maybe it is all a sign, maybe they all add up pointing me back to camp; or maybe they are just coincidences and nothing more.
HMMM

The Rise and Fall of Albert T. Plan

I am the one who whenever a problem comes up, I think of a plan, a solution for getting myself out. Whenever i was told I wouldn’t be able to graduate at this time or that time, I looked at it as a minor set back to my grand plan. I would then sit down and figure out a solution for this problem. Then after a few minutes I would arise with the best plan in the world within my head. I would stand victorious, for I was able to outsmart God, think of my own destiny and not have to fully trust him. All this seemed to work until 2 hours ago.
I was checking back on one of my plans, checking to make sure that all systems were go, that everything was running smoothly and that there would be no further issues. That is when I saw it. the wrench in the gears, the oil slick on the floor, the problem. I brushed it off at first, “Ha this won’t stop me” I thought, “all I got to do is come up with a new plan”. That’s when I found out that none of my plans were working, that none of my plans would work, all attempts are futile. I could no longer come up with another plan, there is no escaping what needs to be done. I did not want to accept this reality, it is impossible, there must be another way! But in my search there was no other way, no escape, there is only one way now.
So now I am in the position of wondering if I should even come up with any plans, they always seen to fail, so what’s the point of constructing faulty buildings if they are going to fall down? I know that I must trust, trust that there is a plan and a purpose, that something bigger than me is in control of. I trust and I try to trust, but it’s moments like this that make me wonder what will happen.

Me the ESFJ

This is what I am currently experincing:
I am listening to "cuddle fuddle" by passion pit.
My goldfish Geraldo is extremely happy
I am recovering from a caffine crash
my friend from camp is ranting about his distaste for pop culture
and I am talking to Grace on skype.

I felt like now would be a good time to blog, just write about whatever. Today I took a personality test, the myers-briggs personality test to be exact. It says that I am an ESFJ, which means:

• moderately expressed extravert
  
• slightly expressed sensing personality
  
• distinctively expressed feeling personality
  
• slightly expressed judging personality

I don't know how to take it, I take all personality test with a grain of salt; it goes down better that way. I say that no test can really define who I am because I (like all humans) is far more complex and I have different moods and will react differently in certain situations. Here is a list of celebrities that share the same personality with me

Famous ESFJs:

U.S. Presidents:

William McKinley

William J. Clinton

Jack Benny
Desi Arnaz ("Ricky Ricardo")
Don Knotts ("Barney Fife")
John Connally (former Governor of Texas)
Terry Bradshaw, NFL quarterback
Sally Struthers (All in the Family)
Mary Tyler Moore
Dixie Carter (Designing Women)
Steve Spurrier, Heismann trophy winner, Univ. of Fla. football coach
Sally Field
Danny Glover, actor (Lethal Weapon movies, Predator 2 Margaret Butt
Nancy Kerrigan (U.S. olympic figureskater)
Elvis Stojko (Canadian olympic figureskater)

Fictional ESFJs:

Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis)
Hoss Cartwright (Bonanza)
Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Star Trek)
Monica (Friends)
Haleh (ER)
Donald Duck
Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh

Grace took the same test and Hiliary Clinton was one of her results. This could mean one of two things. First, we are going to take over the political world, or second I am going to cheat on her with an intern. I am leaning more towards the first choice.
I am going to start drinking more coffee from 7-11, its cheap and pretty good but mostly crappy. I guess since its mostly crappy I shouldn't do it, but the latte that I tasted was so amazing I must go back. I have nothing more to say.