down the dusty road

God did an amazing thing: He provided. Actually, this is what He said He would do, but I am never fulling expecting it, and so it is wonderful when it does happen. Specifically, I received Charity Care for over $3000 of hospital bills, which means that my debt has been forgiven!

Thank you, Abba.

Just a note on my last post: I appreciate where I am, and I did choose to go to a more expensive college. I do understand that hard work is necessary to make it through anything in life (including college bills) and am not trying to make it through on handouts alone. I was merely expressing a measure of frustration at seemingly unequal aid being allotted in a society that is trying so desperately to make all people equal in all things. Some people misunderstood me, so I hope that clears things up a bit.

Looking at my latest Student Air Report from FAFSA amused and frustrated me. My expected family contribution is low, relatively. But it is also ridiculously more than my parents can or will provide for this next school year. I am pretty sure that the government doesn’t really care that my parents are supported missionaries, but still, I wish somebody would.

Besides which, and don’t misunderstand me: I AM NOT RACIST, but something is up when I search for scholarships and financial aid programs and the majority of them are for really smart, really engaged people (honors students, or students who took all college prep courses in high school) or for minorities. Just so happens that the criteria for many of the applications I have seen are tailored toward Hispanics, blacks, Latinos, and whatever else I am not.

Take a look through for white, middle class, average students from low income families, and there isn’t much.

So why should a poor minority be more special? or the exceptional kids? I am all for helping the disadvantaged and rewarding the diligent, but what about those in the middle? I mean, somebody has to be, and should they get overlooked? Or is there something that I am missing (probably a great many things, actually)?

I don’t even know that I am all that terribly upset, it may just be that I am considering how much money I am going to have to give (that I consider well spent, no matter what) for my next semester of college education, and wish that somewhere, somehow, it was easier to afford. Especially considering that this is not the college world that my parents knew, and that the world world expects more and more that you can only get through college. (Try getting a good job without a degree, and its way more difficult than with one.)

Guess I am between the rock and the hard place, considering jumping into the frying pan from the fire, or, in a metaphor from my generation, surrounded by the Flood and the Covenant on this one (but without the advantage of being Master Chief).

So what gives?

So, last night my hard drive crashed. Fortunately, not my main iMac drive, but a new external that I had just finished copying over 300gb of pirated movies, legally owned movies, my edits, and some video editing videos, such as jumpbacks and the like. And that is now gone…poof. Like a mist on a summer’s morning…like cheesecake on my plate, like the blowing of the wind, my friend. Vanished.

But what is life? it is a vapor. What is man, but a fading flower of grass?

I counted, this is my fourth hard drive failure in four years. I can honestly say that I am not actually that angry. Annoyed that I spent money on this drive that is now unrecoverable. Annoyed at the hours spent compiling my movie library that are now lost. Annoyed. But not angry, not really upset. How can I be? Gosh, so some movies are deleted…big deal!

What is that compared to the sum of my existence? Honestly, barely worth blogging about, except for the fact that I am so unremarkably angry. God must really be changing me. Times were something like this would have me scowling for two weeks and barely able to form coherent sentences without the aid of extraneous explitives. Now, I am simply annoyed, and moving on with my life.

I can hardly believe it.

As the Oracle says, “Everything that has a beginning, has an end.”

Tru dat.

Hello readers,

Perhaps you remember a little while ago I promised to post online my latest video editing project from Pirates of the Caribbean. Well, the wait is over:

enjoy!

Because I took a nap this afternoon, I am still awake at 0209:17. Which means that tomorrow I will be tired in the middle of the day. Oh well.

Since I was awake, I was perusing my brother’s blog, Minor Thoughts, and was contemplating my own blog. I tend to want to be like him, though I understand I probably never will be. But I am starting to blog more, writing about myself, personal issues, things that happen, whatever interests me.

So, the big question is: am I merely copying him, or am I doing the little brother thing and learning from my older sibling? Or is it the same thing? Not sure. Perhaps we both inherited the writing gene from our mother, and blogging is today’s easiest way to say whatever we want to whoever actually sits down and reads these things, poor souls who have little else to do. (Being facetious, if you read this A: don’t be offended and B: please keep reading).

Should I find some other way to express myself, some other medium that he isn’t utilizing? On that hand, the philosopher Shlomo said “Nothing new under burning ball in sky” (no, really, he did….look it up).

But, since it is getting later, or earlier, depending on your perspective on life, and since I am starting to get a sleep-deprivation headache, I will leave the question open to debate.

Adios.

I feel reborn….like a video montage to a rock song….an Alvin and the Chipmunks rock song. Yep, its true. I’ve been ‘Munked.

But seriously….no, not seriously. but listen, I feel like a kid again. Ok, so I am only 21, and still am, like, a kid in a world of adults, but I feel like I am 13 again, rocking with the Chipmunks. I just saw the movie and it took me back to growin up. I recently saw the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (TMNT) and that also was a throwback for me (Yes, mother, despite your best efforts, I still saw and loved the Turtles. Sorry) and it is giving me a rebirth.

I’ll level with you: my life got seriously screwed up for awhile. For some reason (I strongly suspect: GOD), I am starting to breathe deep and the clouds around my life are clearing. Getting back in touch with my roots, remembering stuff I loved as a kid, before I started down my dark and twisted road, is healing my wounds. And I don’t wanna go back. I ain’t never gonna go back. Count on it.

A new thing is comin…

Confession time, again: I am fat. Well slightly overwei….no. No rationalizing. Fat.

So the time has come to end my adulterous, idolatrous, illicit, and bad-for-me relationship with sweets. Cookies: we are through! Candy: hit the road! Cheesecake: it would never have worked between us, darling.

I don’t like looking down and thinking my feet have left me for someone who will not abuse them. I don’t like the fact my favorite pair of jeans from when I was 7 don’t fit anymore. (Well, ok, bad example, they still wouldn’t fit.) I don’t like not being able to wear my favorite t-shirts (well, the ones my mother didn’t make into a quilt) anymore. I don’t like being big.

So, I am starting a public change. I will not snack, I will not eat sweets by the missionary barrel, and I will start to move my Jabba-esque form more.

I will not quit! By God’s grace, I can do it!

so there.

(please help, God, and all other kind hearted souls. It is now ok to tackle me if you see me eating something with more than the usually good amount of sugar contained therein. This includes bowls of sugar.)

Hello,

to all of you who were waiting for a copy of my recently edited Pirates video to appear online, I am sorry to disappoint. Currently the internet is less than friendly with the way that it handles high quality video. Eventually, I do want to make it available to all of you who want to see it, but it may be some time.

I apologize.

phil

So, I am sitting waiting for a lecture that I have to attend for my Romantic Literature class, and felt I should post something to mark the occasion.

Several of the Romantic poets struggled with opium addictions, and I am fortunately able to say that I do not. But, I do have something else that is a bit of an addiction: checking email.

I pathologically and obsessive-compulsively check my email. Every time I sit down before a computer, I check, even if I have done so 3 minutes before. But, at least there are few important emails that I miss.

Anyhow, that is my Romantic confession for tonight. Technically, the lecture is about to start, so I should be polite and get off the computer.

Sianara.