The Thanksgiving That Was

Since we did not have class last week, I am going to write about my Thanksgiving break and other random stuff. I would say that I had an excellent break. I went home early Wednesday afternoon and carpooled with a friend from high school that goes here. Her class got out at 11:10 so I picked her up at 12:00 at her apartment. Thankfully she is a talker so she kept me awake on the ride home. There was so much traffic on I-45! It is understandable since everybody was leaving for vacation but the highway was super crowded. I don’t like driving on crowded highways since the opportunities for accidents increase so much. It also increases the driving time since there was so much traffic. It didn’t rain at all during the drive. Which was good because rain and Thanksgiving traffic don’t seem to mix well.
My friend who rode with me was excited to see me since we hadn’t hung out in awhile. She was one of my best friends in high school but I haven’t gotten to see her much in high school. She is at A&M to study to be a vet. Understandably, that takes up a good portion of her time while in College Station. We were very close in high school and we have a good amount of stories to tell from those days. She always feels the need to update me on the status of the girlfriend I had in high school. This is weird because my ex is a nice girl but we don’t talk at all and haven’t talked in years. But thanks to my friend, I know all about how her college life is going.
My friend mentioned one of the best memories we had in high school and it made me reminisce about it. During our senior year, we participated in an organization called We the People. It was sponsored by the State Bar of Texas and focused on spreading Constitutional awareness in high school students through competitions modeled after trials. It was one of the most high pressure activities I have ever done. Teachers at our high school handpicked some students to participate in the competition. For whatever reason, I was chosen. We had to memorize tons of important Supreme Court cases and their significance. It was grueling. I spent many hours before and after school looking over cases and practicing making speeches before mock panels of judges. The actual competition was very much like a panel before Congress. A small portion of our team, usually 4 members, would go before a panel of judges and other people knowledgeable about law and answer their Constitutional questions using cases in an oral presentation. It was hardcore.
Like I previously mentioned, I spent many hours poring over the material for the competition to make sure that I thoroughly knew it. Any break during the day, I would look at my notes. I remember the mock trial we had at my high school one day to prepare us for the difficult competition. My teacher brought in a lawyer friend who went through a mock presentation with us. He was very hard on us. Looking back, I think the difficult nature of the preparation allowed us to be ready for the competition.
Finally, the day came. Our whole team, around 15 students, piled onto a yellow school bus with our two teachers/coaches and one assistant principal for the school. We traveled down to Austin in style! Not really, but we did incessantly quiz each other and read notes. It was fun at the same time though. (By the way I am writing one long blog instead of two!) My team also joked around a lot and took naps. It seemed to take forever to get to Austin for the competition but 4 hours was a long time to drive for a college student.
At long last, we arrived at our hotel. It was the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. The school district had given us a large amount of spending money for this trip it seemed! It was right in the middle of Austin and not too far from the Capitol building. After waiting awhile for the teachers to get our rooms ready, we all got our room keys and took our suitcases up to our rooms. Then we all loaded back onto the bus and went to go eat at Chili’s. It was paid for by the school district as well. This was all crazy stuff for a guy who only played jv sports and had never really experienced this.
After eating, we traversed the short distance back to our hotel and went straight to studying. We probably studied four to five hours that night. It was exhausting but we knew we needed to know the cases back and forth to do well the next day. Mr. Bowser, our AP, even helped us study though he knew nothing about the material. I could tell our two teachers were very worried about the next day’s competition but they were excited about it as well. Around midnight, the teachers told us that we should go to bed to make sure we were rested for tomorrow. Well, my group decided that this wouldn’t do for us. We were determined to do well at the competition. So, after we had been checked into our rooms, me and my roommate ducked out of our room and went down the stairwell to the girls room two floors below. It was a bold move for sure. I usually don’t do something so stupid like that. But we went and reviewed some cases with the two girls in our team for about 30 more minutes before heading back to our rooms to get some sleep.
The next day was competition day. There were two rounds in the competition. There was a first round and then a second round in which only the top three teams participated. It was intense. There were probably 20 schools there from all around the state. The stakes were big because the winner of Texas got to go to nationals which were held in Washington D.C. later that year. We were all nervous because our high school had never been to this competition and we weren’t sure what to do. However, all of our hard work paid off and we ended up advancing to the 2nd round of the competition. Sadly, we won third place because one of our team members did not know the Alaskan “Bong Hits for Jesus” case that made a buzz in c. 2005. We were all ecstatic though! In our first year of competing, we had beat out most of the state of Texas to win third place.
This blog was a total tangent but my Thanksgiving was excellent. I loved spending 5 days with my family and getting to see a couple of my good friends from back home. I can’t wait for Christmas break. There will be two hectic weeks before that is eminent but it will be here soon enough. This week is extremely busy between work, tests, presentations, and everything else that is going on in life!! However, I get an extremely long weekend and that will be nice. Although, I am sure I will have tons of work to do during the weekend.

Unfortunately I missed English class on Wednesday because I was not feeling well. So I’m going to just write about random stuff. This week has been uneventful for the most part. I have hung with friends, studied (a little!), and worked a couple of shifts at my new job.
One of the best parts of my week was working the new job. I am really enjoying it. The major reason I like the job is the people. My two shifts this week was awesome! I got to work with my friend Blake for two of the shifts and my friend Chris for half a one shift. I am starting to be able to make drinks better. There are a ton of drinks to memorize!! It is crazy. My guess is that there are around 20-25 different drinks to know how to make. I think within 2 weeks I will be able to make all of them well. That is my goal for now.
It is an interesting timeline of how I became an employee of Muldoon’s Coffee House. I met the aforementioned Blake in my weightlifting class last semester. We became good friends quickly and hung out outside of class a couple of times. I decided to visit him at his job (Muldoon’s) once. While visiting him, Blake introduced me to Chris, who owns Muldoon’s. I am not sure how I became such good friends with Chris as well, but I do remember the time that Chris and I went out to lunch. It was a good talk and because of the subject of that conversation, I decided to get baptized that night at Alumni Fountain. I had many friends, including Chris and Blake, come to see me get baptized. I think this was the beginning of our friendship. I came down to College Station for one weekend last summer to hang out with them. So coming into this semester, my friendships with Chris and Blake were solidified.
This semester, Chris overheard me talking to a friend about the troubles I was having with working at Chick-Fil-A. He immediately offered me a job at Muldoon’s and said the offer was always open. I prayed about leaving Chick-Fil-A and finally decided to leave about 2 weeks ago. Muldoon’s has been working out perfectly so far. This week, I worked Thursday and Friday morning. Working that early allowed me to have a relaxing Friday night and actually get to go to the football game on Saturday! Yes! Unfortunately, this is only my 2nd football game this year but at least I am making the best game! Texas A&M has broken the record for most student tickets sold for a football game nationwide. Which proves yet again that the aggies are the best ever.
I am really hoping that we beat Nebraska today. It is going to be really loud at Kyle Field! Capacity at Kyle is 83,000 people and we are expected to have around 88,000 to 90,000 today. That is a ton of people!
I have been feeling really burdened lately for my brothers and sisters in Christ across the globe who are facing horrible persecution for believing in Christ. Besides the more obvious events that receive a little media attention such as the church bombing in Iraq, there are many more events that don’t get any attention at all. I read one story last week of a Christian in Iran who was arrested for simply believing in Christ. He is being held for no reason in a prison. Hindu extremists in India prevent my brothers and sisters from receiving even the basic necessities of life. It is so sad. I have it so easy as a Christ-follower in America. I only get made fun of and slandered. In other nations, the government or other religions will do horrible things to believers. It is crazy how much they hate us but Jesus predicted it. They don’t like to see the truth spread but the more they try to extinguish Christianity, the stronger it comes back.

Another Monday and another English class! I was tired that day because I had driven up from Dallas that morning. Nevertheless, I successfully attended English class.
In class we went over examples of how to write a rhetorical analysis. I’m afraid that my rough draft that I had written over the weekend is not going to fit within the rhetorical analysis framework! Aaaaah! I hope it is but I will rewrite my paper if I need to. I guess that is the price I have to pay for doing my work on schedule! ;)
One of the more interesting parts of class yesterday happened both before and after class. When I walked up the group of my classmates talking before class, I was instantly wished a few belated happy birthdays. I was surprised people knew but you can thank Facebook for that. That was not the interesting part though. Somebody asked me if I was hungover from my birthday on Sunday. I answered no because I’m not 21 yet so I don’t drink. They then asked me if I drink at all and I said no. The ball started rolling downhill from there. A couple people were astounded that I don’t drink and a couple of peeps started cracking jokes at me. The big phrase they were throwing around was that I was a “straight edge”. I definitely had to look that one up on urbandictionary.com because I had never heard that slang before. After class, as I walked with two of my classmates to the other side of campus, they kept slinging the jokes. After awhile, they said they were kidding but the tone of derision in their jokes said otherwise.
It has been awhile since I have been made fun. Especially being made fun of for being a Christian. They may say that they were just joking. But honestly they were singling me out for being different. It made me think a lot about some things yesterday. Jesus said that his followers will be persecuted for their belief in him. I see it in the media a lot. Now some people do some real boneheaded things that have nothing to do at all with Christ or the Gospel. But I have seen some articles and stories that are posted just because the media wants to suppress Christianity. The truth makes them uncomfortable. It is rare though for me to see a dislike for Christianity on my level.
What Jesus tells me to do in this situation is simple but not easy to do. He tells me to love them. To do good to them. To bless them when they curse me. Simple but hard to do. Its at times like these that I understand a little what my Savior went through to bring me out of my dead life. He went through a ton more than I have but it still hurts to get made fun of. Their jokes also made me realize their spiritual deadness even more. They don’t get my life. The Bible says their eyes are blinded to the Truth. That the Gospel smells like death to them. My friends who don’t know Jesus will never understand why I live like I do unless God opens their spiritual eyes. They will think I’m weird. That I’m old fashioned. I wish they could see the life that Christ has given me. How I’m no longer empty and depressed. How I am more loved and accepted than I have ever been. Alas, they only see that I don’t drink and ostracize me. I wish they could see why I don’t drink. It’s because Jesus willingly gave his perfect life on the cross for me that I might receive the life that was fully his. So if he tells me that if I love him, I will obey his commands, then if he tells me not to get drunk then I will joyfully stay sober. Because his love is the best thing that has ever happened to this loser kid. I don’t think my classmates will ever read this blog. If you do, I forgive you.

I'm 20!

We didn’t get much done in class on Wednesday. It was the most distracted I have ever seen the class! However, despite the antics of the class, we got started on a rough draft of a rhetorical analysis of the Bad Romance video. It helped me write out my rough draft of my paper. I have never done a rhetorical analysis of a piece of art but it was not as difficult as I expected.
I did my rough draft on the music video for “Hurt”, a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song by Johnny Cash. It is probably my favorite music video of all time. I saw it for the first time when I was a senior in high school. I was the only senior in my speech class that semester. It was a little awkward at times. But I remember that we were looking at various music videos to illustrate something. The teacher introduced the Johnny Cash video with a short history of him. Then she played the video. And I immediately loved it. And felt like crying. The video hit a string in my heart. I love the video because I relate to it immensely. The first time I saw it I was struggling with depression because I felt like nothing in life was worth doing since it wouldn’t matter when I died. I wrote my rough draft on the theme in the video that life was transient. Much of the video contrasts the gaiety of the young with the solemnity of the ancient. I had forgotten about the video until before this semester. I watched it again and I think I enjoy the video even more now. I had never really realized the clips of Jesus being crucified at the end of “Hurt”. Those clips made an even deeper connection with me. I am past the depression now and, like Johnny, I have found a way out of the nothingness of life through Jesus. I haven’t been through as much in my life as Johnny but I feel like we can relate.
I wish there were more artists like Johnny Cash today. Sure there are some great artists out there and some great lyricists. But Johnny stood for something. You may not agree with his love of Jesus and how he was vocal about it at times but even people who weren’t Christians were drawn to Johnny. It was more than his voice. It was his honesty and familiarity. He felt like one of the audience members to the kids back in the day.
Most artists I have seen in concert feel distant and detached from the artist. We all sing along and get excited to see them in concert. But for whatever reason, artists don’t relate to my generation. I’m sure there are some that I haven’t discovered yet. We need artists like that though.
I went home this weekend for my birthday. It was pretty awesome. I love hanging with my family. We also celebrated my sister signing her national letter of intent for college. I am super proud of her because she has put in countless hours at the gym since middle school to get where she is now. I hope that she has a great college experience and enjoys playing basketball in college. She is graduating next June! Time really does fly. I can still remember my college graduation like it was yesterday. It was only a year and a half ago but it doesn’t seem that long ago.
It can be funny how different yet similar siblings are. I graduated number 6 in my class and I don’t think my sister is that high but she is probably top 30. I played sports too but she is way better than I ever was. We are complete opposites in some ways but really alike in some ways. I am more of an introvert while she is more extroverted.
1 and a half weeks to Thanksgiving break. I will be signing up for classes for next semester in two weeks. That is when you know that the semester is almost over.

New Job, New Age

                Monday’s class was the recipient of the famous Lady Gaga presentation by Ms. Wheeler. The presentation consisted of a rhetorical analysis of Gaga’s Bad Romance music video. Ms. Wheeler presented her case that the video was a statement by Lady Gaga for disability rights. Major scenes from the video were analyzed and observed to back up points from Ms. Wheeler’s point of view. It was a very good presentation and although we will probably never know the true meaning of the video, the view that it was protesting the dehumanization of people with disabilities was very intriguing.

            I took the video to be about something different and I guess that is the interesting point about analyzing art. Although it may be the more obvious take on the video, I garnered from the video that Gaga was making her views known about sex slavery, objectification of women, and “free love”.

            I did my rhetorical analysis proposal on a song by Lecrae. The song “Killa”  is probably my favorite track from 2010. But I’m not sure if I can, or want to, pull enough analysis from it to reach the word count necessary for the final paper. I might do my analysis on Johhny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. The video made for his cover was excellent and I think I could do a good analysis on it. The wheels are turning in my head so we will see!

            The semester is almost over. Thanksgiving break is almost here and after that, a couple of finals and then I am done with this semester. Life goes by so fast as you get older. There never seems to be enough time in each day and the weeks fly by. I wonder how life will feel once I am out of college.  I am sure it will be much different. But time will still leave me standing still gaping at how life has gone by. I have yet to see any of my friends graduate. That will come next year. I can already think of several people who will be receiving their diplomas by next Christmas. Scary. I am not too far away from that.

            I start my new job on Thursday and end my old one on the same day. It is the end of an era in a way. I am leaving my old job at Chick-Fil-A to start a new job at Muldoon’s Coffee House. In a way, my leaving Chick-Fil-A is symbolic. Before this semester started, I thought that my future career might be there. Midway through the semester, I am not so sure about that happening. This Chick-Fil-A is much different from my other one back home but the damage done by the College Station store might be too much to recover from. This new job has me excited. My good friend Chris owns Muldoon’s Coffee Shop and he invited me to come work for him. I don’t know anything about coffee but I will by this week’s end! I am hoping the environment will be better at my new job.

            This coming weekend, I will be heading home for the first time in over a month. There are two occasions for this trip. One, my sister is signing her commitment letter for college on Thursday and two, my birthday is this upcoming Sunday. Being able to hang out with my family will be amazing. Hopefully my sister stays around so I can actually see her!

            This week is full of symbolism. I turn 20 on Sunday so I will no longer be considered one of those pesky teenagers that annoy America to death! 20 is a weird birthday. It’s cool no longer being a teenager (I guess). But then now I am old. Ugh. And I’m not legal yet. So I’m kinda in this weird transition period- both age-wise and in life.  I see my junior friends and can’t imagine myself being them. Yet I will be a junior by hours next semester. Yikes!

            It is weird because I used to be so scared of getting older. I was filled with regret about decisions I did or did not make in my life. Now, after having met Jesus, I don’t feel any fear or loathing about the days passing by. Getting older is just a chance to experience the love of Christ in a new way with different people. If I make a decision I regret, Jesus will still be constantly loving me no matter what.

So the second writing project begins. We have received the rubric for our third writing project. It is a rhetorical analysis project on a topic of our choosing.

In class we talked about the article we had to read for homework. The article was about words and their meanings. The author went in depth on the history of freak shows and how they affected the people involved in the shows. I had never read on the history of the shows and I found it interesting and horrifying at the same time. It was incredibly sad how people with disabilities were exploited and used as objects to make money off of. It is also convicting about how little life has changed since then.

Listening to the discussion in class made me think of a couple of people with disabilities I have known in my life. Two of them, I have known from work back home. My Chick-fil-A has employed at least two people with mental disabilities that I know of. They were some of the coolest people I have ever known.

The first guy’s name was Brandon and he was a mid-thirties black male. I loved talking to him because he was funny although I didn’t understand much of what he said. He was an extremely hard worker and was really friendly to most people. I am not sure how we became friends but he liked talking to me and I was really excited to see him whenever we worked together. I believe that Brandon had some kind of mental disability as he still lived with his parents. Unfortunately, Brandon was not treated well by his stepmother. On multiple occasions, he told me of fights he had with his stepmother. He said that she even threw him out of the house one time. I haven’t talked with Brandon in a while because his dad and stepmother divorced over her treatment of Brandon. Brandon and his dad moved to another city about 30 minutes away from where he was before. Sometimes he messages me on facebook to say hi. He always tells me to not put shampoo on the steering wheel and to listen to the Tom Joyner radio show. He is a fun guy and I miss seeing him at work.

The other individual with a disability that I met was a guy my age named Kenny. Kenny was also a black individual but closer to my age than Brandon. I was told Kenny may have autism but I have never found out for sure. Kenny also really likes me and I think he is a cool guy to talk to. Kenny always rides his bike to work, even when it is really cold outside. Kenny loves OU football and tornadoes. He wants to be a storm chaser one day. I hope he gets to do it! He gets really excited when it starts to storm outside and he always says he hopes the storm creates a tornado. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Kenny in quite a while because he suddenly went on leave at work to live in Oklahoma for awhile. But I hope that he makes it back to the Dallas area by the time I work during Christmas break.

I think it is awesome how my store owner back home has no problem with hiring people with disabilities to work at the store. I have not worked with anyone with a disability at all at my store down here. This may be because no one with a disability has applied. But if I ever own a business, I want to help people with disabilities with my business to the utmost of my ability.

I am surprised that I have not found any more chances to become friends with people who have disabilities. I know a couple people in college who have disabilities but I have not met that many. I am not sure why this is. Maybe they aren’t allowed into college or they don’t apply to college. But there should be more of them who should be allowed to come to places Texas A&M.

I have to write my proposal for the rhetorical analysis paper over the weekend and I am not sure what I am going to do yet. I am thinking of doing either a song by my favorite artist or a documentary I just saw.

Election

Class yesterday was spent talking about the papers that we wrote over the weekend. It was an in depth discussion of two articles written about the cultural use of the word “retard”.  There were about two or three people who seemed to really understand rhetorical strategy and how to analyze it. It is cool to hear their opinions and how they are developing their opinions. But I think the other people in the class should have a chance to talk about what they wrote as well. I would say that 80% of the class barely says anything at all. They need to speak up! Two or three people who are more vocal than the rest of the class shouldn’t dominate the conversation.

It is election time. Everybody seems to be talking about the election and whose party is going to get elected. I haven’t voted and I don’t think I will. I don’t know anything about any of the candidates and I feel like I shouldn’t vote unless I am educated about what is going on. People on facebook are ranting about how their party is going to win this election and what not. It gets pretty annoying. My parents are pretty staunch Republicans but I have turned out to be pretty neutral when it comes to politics. It makes me sad to see people put so much hope in political candidates, parties, and our government in general. Candidates will fail, parties will let down, and the government is unable to fix anything.

So why do we rant so much about our parties and their goals? There has been tremendous change in America due to politics and our government. Yet, things are still broken. We have gotten better. But new problems are springing up like weeds. Some old problems, like racism, are just lurking beneath the surface now. Still, Americans place their hopes and fears in the hands of a candidate or party every two years. And life still ends up hurting us. I’m all for voting. We are blessed to live in a land where we can voice our opinions through elections. I personally think democracy works better than a dictatorship. I am just not going to put my hope in some political party’s campaign for change in my life.

It was awesome to see President Obama get elected two years ago. Getting to see the first black president get elected was a unique moment in my life. But has Obama really enacted that much change in our lives? I understand that I am young and taxes and whatnot are not a major worry in my life yet. It is just that with every President major life change will not come. We are going to have problems in this world until Jesus comes back. Even if a President or Congress enacted “sweeping” changes where everybody in America was rich, successful, healthy, or whatever else voters desire, we cannot escape the fact that we have major flaws as humans since our break with God. Politics cannot fix the chasm that sin has brought into our lives.

I am not sure if I will ever vote. My parents will get onto me about voting if I don’t. If I don’t vote, I don’t think it will affect me at all. My hope isn’t based on parties and politics anyway. They can’t save me and never will be able to. I hope Christ opens the eyes of my peers and contemporaries to see this truth. Because it seems with each election, Americans put politics on a higher pedestal than before. If you say you will run to Canada or Mexico if your party loses power, I think it is time you have a heart check. Because what you really want from politics is the fulfillment of your desire to be included on the winning side of things. You can’t bear the thought of the opposite party taking power and running things differently.

It is now officially fall in Texas. It’s about time! I think I said something like this in one of my blogs a few weeks ago. But then the weather became warmer so I had to change my stance. It is official now. I hope.