intomybrain

It’s been a while since I posted. Instead of giving you all an update of what’s been going on since I posted last, I’m just going to type what’s on my mind at the moment. I’ll type a full update another time soon…some time when I’m much more awake than I am at the moment.
So tonight was the first Jersey Cru of this Spring 2006 semester. It was awesome. I’m very very thankful for God’s grace and love. I definitely experienced it tonight. I had a not so good week, and a really really stressful day. And then, on the way to Cru, David and I (I was following him…which, you should ask him how good I am at following sometime ) got stuck in traffic. In the past, we’ve been able to make the trip in about 20 minutes or so. Today, it took us at least 1 hour and 45 minutes! Stand. Still. Traffic. Enough said.
By the time I actually got to Stevens’ (where Jersey Cru is held) I was so tired, still stressed, and only had about a half hour to practice our entire set of 8 songs. We didn’t end up getting to practice the whole set. But I definitely prayed over it. As I’m sure other people did as well. After we practiced I still felt so rushed, I kept walking around needing to fix things and make sure everything was ok and ready…because, well…we were’nt ready…but I had to at least make it look like we were ready. I finally sat down next the couch that Jen was sitting on, David had just handed me his Bible, so I started to read. And I thought I was going to throw up. I was so nervous and stressed, my whole body was shaking. It made me feel so sick. I felt so inadequate and so not ready for this evening to start. People started to come over to me, and soon the whole worship team (David, Dan, Vroman, and I) and our 2 friends and my sister who came to visit were surrounding me. David (I think) decided we should pray for the service then. So we started praying, and then Jen prayed for me (her hand was on my shoulder a couple of minutes prior to that so I’m pretty sure she felt how much I was shaking, and we had talked the morning before and she knew how I was feeling about the whole night.) It felt good. I mean. I felt like crap, but my friends were there, they understood, they acknowledged what I was feeling, and prayed for me. And I know that the time of worship was better for it. I was the leader, and I needed to be broken and humbled before God before I could lead people before Him. It hurt. But I could feel His love so much more in that moment. Up to the very last moment before we stood infront of everyone to sing and play (and even after that) I was just like, “Here God, take all of this. Take all of me. Because I can’t do this, but You can.”
It was a beautiful thing.
The first set worked out fine. (We played: Meet with Me, Beautiful One, Holy is the Lord, Grace Like Rain, and When I Think About the Lord). I had a hard time hearing what it actually sounded like, because the monitors weren’t EQ’ed…but it wasn’t a big deal. I knew that David knew what he was doing in the back with the sound, so I trusted him to be awesome with the sound. (And from what I heard, he did a great job!) It went smoothly, and I am so thankful for that.
It really lifted my spirits. Thank you, Jesus!
And then, after the talk and whatnot, we played our second set. (We played: Cry Holy, You are Holy, and Everyday). That one had a few more bumps in it than the first; since we didn’t get to practice the second set as much as we did the first. For the first song of the second set, Vroman dropped his guitar pick…I saw that he dropped something out of the corner of my eye (or maybe I just saw him searching around with his eyes for something)…but I couldn’t figure out what it was that he was looking for. There were a pile of papers on the floor, so I thought that maybe he dropped the chord sheet and that was why he was having a hard time playing the song. But then, I realized it was his pick. So that was needless to say a bumpy spot in the song, but we made it back in on time for the next verse . Then the second song we played of that set, we never practiced, but it was one we knew, so it went fine. And then the last song was just fun. I think it went well. Praise God!!
After Cru, all 6 of us went out to dinner to Q’boda. It’s sort of a little tradition we’ve got going on. (Although, rumor has it we are going to try a new place to eat afterwards next month.) For those of you who don’t know, Q’boda is a Mexican fast food restaurant. A really really good one. It’s sort of has a Taco Bell meets Starbucks feel to it…except the food is beyond awesome. And fresh! Thank you, Jesus, for Mexicans! We just all had a really fun time. Although, I felt like we just kept going and going. Like, I kind of just wanted to sit down and chill out and not rush and just talk about the evening and get to hear what people thought. But even at dinner, I felt like everyone was going a mile a minute! Or maybe I just think that because we weren’t talking about what I wanted to talk about. Wow, how selfish of me! But its ok, I kept my mouth shut for the most part. I really love just sititng back and enjoying the company of my friends. I love them all each individually all so very much. Thank you, Jesus, for my friends.
Well, I said I was going to go to bed about a half hour ago…so I should get to it!

Oh! One last thing! I decided, officially, that I’m going to go down to New Orleans for my spring break to volunteer with Campus Crusades Hurricane Katrina disaster relief team!! I have no idea why it took me so long to decide. I mean, haven’t I been waiting to go back to the area to help since the second I left Camp Katrina?!?!! Well, thanks to an awesome friend’s encouragement and insight, I made a firm decision to go! Yay! I’m so excited to do this again.
Praise God!

So. I find myself in a relativley depressing situation. Quite petty, but depressing none the less.
Jingy (my roomie) and Michelle (her friend from Rutgers) just left for her 22nd birthday party (cleverly disguised as NJIT’s 99 days to graduation party at Hamilton’s pub). I wanted to go celebrate her birthday and get out of the room….but no…I’m underage. blah.
So it kind of sucked sitting here in my jeans and a t-shirt hanging out with them while they were getting all dressed up to go to a party. And then they left, said they’d have a shot for me, and the door closed behind them. I hate it when all my friends happen to leave campus the same days/nights. Because it’s always at those times that I’m totally in the mood to hang out….but…no one is here!
Maybe I’ll go to the gym or something. That was the original plan, but then I started to feel really sick to my stomach. Maybe I’ll just get into comfortable clothes and just stretch here so at least I can get something done. I love stretching It feels so good, when you know what you’re doing, that is. And then I can just chill out, maybe make some hot chocolate (because I love chocolate), and watch the latest episode of 24. OH! maybe i can play my guitar or something. um….just kidding…just realized that I still have homework due tomorrow that I haven’t started yet.
Recap: Being 7 months and 18 days too young: bad. Sitting around looking like a bum when you’d rather dress up and go to a party: bad. Hot chocolate and a guitar: good. Physics: Satan.

So today evidently was NJIT Student Appreciation Day. Maybe I’m an idiot and just didn’t see the advertising for it…but I think they could have done a better job of it. I knew it was coming up but I didn’t realize what day. You’d think that if they were really appreciating us students (which, personally, I think they should have a point of doing everyday) they’d make sure we’d really really know about it. But anyway, I still thought it was pretty nifty. The Campus Center actually felt like you were on a college campus today. It was fun. There was music and people and other stuff. I thought it just felt fun. Of course, by the time I got out of my room and had this whole realization of this day of appreciation, I had only like 10 minutes to get food and eat before I had to go to class. So I basically missed it…I have class from 1-5:30 with no breaks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so my day was completely shot and I missed a lot of the “festivities.” So. I got back from class and I went back to my room and just hung out for a bit. Then I decided I was hungry and went to the Campus Center for the buffet for dinner. I’m so glad I did (I almost just got a salad instead.) The food wasn’t all that amazing (not bad, though) but it all still had that “fun feeling.” (Now that I think about it, it was probably just the balloons that made it feel fun…I’m a little kid like that…).
Anyway. I get my food and sit down and realize that the Don Carter Jazz Trio is about to play. It was so what I needed today. I love music. Especially live music.
And as I was listening to them and watching them play, it quickly dawned on me that this was the first time I ever saw a jazz trio play in person. It was so awesome. Just to watch these three men play these instruments that they love. With a type of rhythm that I don’t hear frequently enough to really wrap my mind around it completely. It’s so different, and rich, and interesting, and appropriately complicated. And the trio is so perfect. Drums, an upright electric bass, and a keyboard. You’ve got everything right there…the rhythm, the bass, and the melody, respectively. And yet, all at the same time, in a jazz trio each of those instruments individually has the capacity to play any of those elements. But they aren’t just capable of it, they do it. There were sections of pieces where the drum took the melody…somehow…as the keyboardist took care of the rhythm. For other songs, the drums were the bass, the bass was the melody, and the keys were the rhythm. And every other combination you can think of. Jazz is cool. Live jazz is even better.
It made me miss music. Not just music itself, more specifically playing music with a group of people. I haven’t played an instrument along with other people since high school. Literally. That’s awful. Yes, I’ve sung with a band since then…and I love that just as much. But 1) I don’t get to do that nearly as often as I’d love and 2) it’s different than picking up a tangible instrument that you can either run your fingers or breath across to make music. And playing with other people, especially your friends and people you care about and who care about you…and who all love music…is in and of itself a totally amazing experience. I really love it. And I really wish I could do it more often. I think some people take that for granted (‘that’ being the act of playing music with other people)…because not everyone who wants to do so has the opportunity to do so. No matter how badly you want to sing or play with other people…if you don’t have the “other people” than you can’t play with them, now can you? Sometimes it bothers me to see some people who get to play along with their friends on a regular basis…because as I said before, most people take it for granted. They act like, “oh, its nothing, we do it all the time.” They may thinks it’s even cool and fun, but you never realize how really “cool” and “fun” it is until you have that opportunity taken away from you for one reason or another.
But at the same time it can have a sort of catch-22 aspect to it… because if you do experience the lull that is the lack of that aforementioned opportunity, and then you do eventually get the chance to play even once with people…if they don’t understand what that lull feels like (or on the other hand, how awesome coming out of that lull feels like) …it becomes sort of…well…depressing. Because it’s almost like, “Hey! I’m back!” and they’re all like, “You were gone?” and it then proceeds to become not as cool.

…very, very fried. Not really sure what to do with myself. I have homework and studying I could be doing. I just don’t want this, any of this. I dont understand my school work…so even when I try to do the homework I don’t get anywhere. So it makes me feel completely unmotivated, like…what’s the point? I’m totally sucking at school right now. Like, in every class. What the heck happened to me?!
bllaaaaaaaaah
I don’t mean to complain. I’m just…well…completely fried. And feeling really really trapped. People keep telling me that I’m not, but I still feel like it either way. I hate this feeling. I feel completely 100% incapable of completing tasks. Anything.
I’m getting so anxious and upset and all this other crap that it’s starting to make me feel physically sick. Which so isn’t helping.
Nothing else to say, really.

Except for the fact that I’m really missing my Waveland friends; both PAC and elsewhere.
Love you guys.

“oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god”
That’s why I found myself saying over and over again while watching Grey’s this week. There aren’t that many shows that I watch every week. Grey’s and the West Wing. That’s just about it. I don’t watch much tv at all outside of those two shows. And I rarely ever watch them live. But today. For some strange reason. I decided that the previews seemed extra interesting. So after watching the Super Bowl, I watched Grey’s. BIG MISTAKE! Oh, my, goodness. I won’t give anything away about the episode. It was so intense. I thought my heart was going to stop. And usually, since I don’t really watch tv live that much, I get recordings that I can either fast forward through the commercials or someone has edited them out for me so I don’t have to bother with it at all. So there’s never an issue with all the mini cliff hangers in the show that get interrupted by commercials. You can just watch it straight through, no interruptions. And if you have a couple weeks worth in a row that you have missed, you can watch them all in a row. But no. For some reason…I didn’t wait this week. I knew it was going to be intense. I saw the previews. But instead, I totally underestimated the quality of the show’s writers and went for the whole instant gratification thing…wow am I ever regretting it now! So now I have to wait until next week to find out what happens. I still feel like my heart is racing. And then, again for some reason unknown to me, I decided to wait after the show was over to see the previews for next week. Bad idea, again! Everything intense that didn’t happen this week looks like it’s going to happen next week! Oh, my, goodness.

Haha, one of the best lines in the show tonight (said by Meredith): “She will hurt him.” Well, there were a lot of good lines, but this is the only one I can tell you all that won’t give anything away for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. It may not seem like a good line at the moment…but watch the show…you’ll see what I mean!

Ok, now I need to either distract myself or go to bed and sleep or something so I can stop thinking about how much that episode totally blew my mind and stressed me out.

Good night all.

For those of you who are not “in the know,” be glad…very very glad. Juuust kiddiiiing. STS 349 is my “Advanced Music Technology” class. So far, I’ve witnessed the music technology…but not so much the advanced. If ya know what I mean (said in true “Whose line is it anyway?” style).

I finished my first project for that class tonight. And by ‘finished’ I actually mean ‘done with it for tonight, until I wake up tomorrow morning, listen to it again, and realize, “wow, that sucks!” as I totally redo the whole thing’.

But for now, it is finished. It was kind of challenging. (yes, I realize that was probably the whole point). We had to pick a short sound clip, either from our own collection or from a sound sample that came with Ableton Live (the software we are using), and proceed to create a song using nothing but that one snippet of sound. It was definitely more of a challenge than I originally thought it would be. But I believe that I accomplished the task…or at least made a decent attempt at it.

Well good night, my lovelies reading this… If anyone actually does read this. It just dawned on me that I actually only know of one person who does read my blog; possibly two. And yet…I will still blog. No matter how much I can’t stand that word. Blog. Ew.

‘Blog’ belongs with all those other words I can’t stand. Like, ‘strap’. And ‘abominable’. And ‘Spanish’. And ‘orgy’. And ‘phenomenon’. I don’t know why I don’t like any of those words. I just don’t. Don’t like the way the sound. They irk me. Hey, add ‘irk’ to that list as well.
Actually, I do know why I don’t like the word ‘phenomenon’ ..it’s because whenever I try to say it out loud (or to myself for that matter) it comes out like, “phemonenomenonemenon”…I start saying it wrong…and I just can’t make it stop once I start it. Literally…ask me to say it sometime…it really sounds like that.

So I posted this and realize it was too long so I split it into two…this is part 1…
I haven’t posted in a few days. Which is interesting because there has been plenty on my mind that I could have been posting about. I just, well, didn’t.
So here’s basically a recap of what most of last week and this past weekend were about for me:
The biggest thing that’s been on my has been my life. (really specific, I know) I’m not enjoying what I’m doing anymore. I don’t like physics as much as I used to. By far. Oh. And I now suck at it. Really. People keep telling me, “well, you’re almost done!” But here’s the thing, all you people who say that or are thinking it…I’m not almost done. I’m closer; not almost there. They don’t mean the same thing. I’m closer, and, might I add, closer to a destination that I no long desire to be at. So, no, saying “well, you’re almost done!” doesn’t help; no matter which way I look at it.
There are a few missing pieces between the previous paragraph and this one, but I’ll spare you all the, at times, very monotonus tortures of my mind. I’m right now just waiting. Waiting on God. I know something else is supposed to change. I’m just waiting for more clues as to what that is and where it is that I’m supposed to be making this proverbial “right turn.”
So anyway…that’s that. There’s a lot more to it, and I may expand on that in another post sometime in the near future, but not right now.
Just trying to figure my life out…

I have been feeling more at peace about all of ‘this’ (see above) over the past few days. This weekend I got a chance to talk to some of my dearest friends about it all. Some people just flat out didn’t get what I was saying…they just weren’t hearing it. But others really put me at ease or at the very least understood me somehow; which in and of itself put me a little more at ease than I was before.
[By the way, if you saw/talked to me this weekend and I seemed grumpy or detatched or whatnot, I apologize. I was just very preoccupied with all the stuff that's been on my mind lately. The above plus more. I was in my own little world. Not that this is any excuse. Just wanted to say sorry.]

So I posted this and realize it was too long so I split it into two…this is part 2…
This week, I’ve been having very beautiful dreams. Both while awake and asleep. I’ve just been flooded with beautiful ideas. Some were just flat out weird dreams while I was sleeping (beautiful none the less), some about friends, some about my future (coincidence, I think not), and other stuff.

I emailed the following to a good friend of mine:
“I started thinking about Camp Katrina and the operation they have running there. And then the thought crossed my mind that this is just one church organizing together to help this one town. They make it possible for church groups from all over to come help this one town recover from this one hurricane. It’s basically a one time deal though. I mean yes, I know churches do things like this a lot…and I know it will happen again…but sometimes it seems like it starts off sort of haphazardly, just on a whim of the Spirit. Not that this is a bad thing. I think it’s awesome. But this is where my idea comes in. Wouldn’t it be awesome to start something…a disaster relief team of sorts…whose mission it is to organize “Camp Katrina’s” for every major disaster this nation faces? Not just a whim. An actual team that spends it’s “off time” preparing resources, making connections, networking, etc so when a disaster does hit, we’re all ready to respond. And it would be a great way to bring additional unity to churches all across the nation. Partnering with churches near the disaster like they are doing at Camp Katrina; as well as bringing new opportunites to start church plants. But I don’t envision it to be so much so an ‘organization’ as a sort of ‘mobile church with a reputation’ (a good one, that is ), so that when disaster strikes, this church has resources it can call on and people willing and ready to answer the call. As human beings we all have struggles and whatnot, and (most of us) know from experience that it’s not a good idea to wait until we are in a bad/tough situation to build up resources (scriptures, people we can call on for help, an ‘escape plan’, etc) to help us get out of it. We need to build up our resources, make connections, and endure growth so we can be really ready from the storms that will undoubtedly come our way again. It should be the same with reaching out to people in need who have had everything they’ve had ripped away from them, don’t you think? And wouldn’t that be an awesome way to show God’s love to people?! “We’re here to help you, we’re praying for you and we’ve been preparing for this from a time before the disaster even happened, because we loved you that much even before we ever saw your faces!”
I can’t wait to do this. I can’t wait. I really want to do this, so I hope I’m not insane .

…or maybe I hope that I’m insane enough…

Tell me what you think.