Kick in the Face

So here it is. The loss of power we're experiencing at work has the ability to slow everything down and give me a chance to blog. It actually had the power to stop time, according to the clock whose hands are hovering right on 2:43. This computer however is on the backup generator.

So, it's been that kind of semester. A long, tough semester with a lack of blogs. And as for this week, it's definately been that kind of week. A kick in the face by reality. The kind that gets your attention. As your future stands right before you waving its arms as if to say, "Hey how could you not have seen me," you begin to wonder yourself how you failed to recognize it. But it's been standing there, ready to dump its load of challenges on your back. Graduation, jobs, leaving. That's just the beginning. With my classes this semester giving me more problems than I've ever dealt with in school, my mind was already preoccupied. And now my grandmother, which could actually be read as "my second mother," is in the hospital undergoing a terribly rough megadose of Kemotherapy. It was something that I'd been expecting, something that was on the calendar in my mind. I knew it was going to be happening soon, but soon and now are so very different. The load of Worry is heaped on my back. And then, constantly finding rejection letters from companies in my email just added to it. A month till graduation and no idea where I'm going to be or what I'll be doing there. This was especially hard Monday, when I received an email from a company that I interviewed with. I thought the interview went very well and I'd followed up with them and everything. It was a place I thought I could fit and it would bring me back to Corpus. It would be so much easier to plan things if rejection letters aren't a reality. But there was the email, thanking me for my time and promising to keep my resume on file. It seems that many companies are going to keep my resume. I'd appreciate it if they gave it back to me instead so I wouldn't have to print anymore out. They're not going to use it. Thanks for the consolation gift... Bitterness and uncertainty add to the pile.

So with updates about Granna coming in from mom, yet another rejection letter sitting in my inbox waiting to be read, and the semester winding down, the future had presented itself and it wasn't something I was prepared to handle. The load is topped off with helplessness.

I went to bed Tuesday night, as I do most nights, with the aid of sleeping pills. I awoke well beofre my alarm went off on my one day to sleep in. Which merely means sleeping until 8:45. But, as I turned my head to look at my clock, my neck let out a pop, which is never a good thing to hear. It was at this point that a sharp pain that extended from my neck to below my shoulder blade began. The muscles that were already tight stiffened and refused to let me turn my head to the right and made it quite a task to rotate my right shoulder. I described it to the chiropractor later that morning and told him about the sharp pain in my upper back and the dull pain throughout the rest of my body. He felt around and told me that he was quite impressed how extremely tight the right side of my back was. He ended up doing his procedure which included adjusting me and massaging my muscles. He told me that I had a knot in my back about the size of a golf ball which was 3 layers of muscles deep. He asked, "Have you been under any stress?"

Stress can take form in many strange ways. Whether it's sending out your resume to companies in New Jersey because you're freaked out or it's your body that gives beneath the weight of the load you've been trying to carry. Well I get the point.

What happened? I usually don't get down or stressed by these things. They happen, normally I deal. I guess this feeling of helplessness overcame me. It's a tough thing to face, the future isn't in your hands. Uncertainty is not a comfortable place to be. So it's now that I need to remember that the future has never been in my hands and honestly it doesn't belong there. These circumstances, this future of mine standing in my path, mocking me had distracted me from where I should fix my eyes. Let me tell you that I'm a big fan of the book of James. One verse that I try to keep near to me is James 1:4. "Let your patience show itself perfectly in what you do. Then you will be perfect and complete and have everything you need." I mean it's on my facebook profile, it must be important to me, right? Dang, I wish. That mindset obviously was overtaken by my selfish nature. The Lord has been with me through everything, he's there as my source of strength. And when I don't bank on that, but instead turn and try to do things myself, I crumble beneath the load. Patience is key. It's something I thought that I had, but it's a battle to remain patient. Patience means reliance on God. It's tough. It shouldn't be, but with my simple, forgetful and just plain ignorant mind, it's something that I stray from. It's always been in His hands, I basically need to get over myself (which shouldn't be hard if you compare sinful me to my awesome, holy, and loving God) and just trust Him. A big part of this reliance comes from turning over everything to the Lord, including this huge load I'd been forcing myself to carry. And with reliance on God, comes patience. And with patience, comes no worries because I will be satisfied in Him. And with my burdens and my worries cast on His strength I will be happy, I'll be complete, I'll have everything I need. He will replace this load of worry and grief with bountiful satisfaction. What good is worrying, why do I need to be able to plan out everything right now? I don't. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus said that. Matthew wrote it down: Matthew 6:33-34. It's something I needed to write down as well. This is all something I needed to work through to understand how stupid I've been. I mean I know that God has a plan for my life and everything will work for His good. I believe that. But how closely do I hold that truth? Well, over the past couple of weeks, my grasp on that has been severely loosened. So now as I strive to regain that grip, I typed this. And it's an amazing truth that can save me so much strife. With all of this needless stress, what could be better than refocusing my eyes and seeing that this big, bad future that was staring me in the face has been resting in God's hands all along. As I said, it was mainly for my benefit, but I know some of you are carrying a much bigger load than I am, so hopefully you'll get something out of this too...

I know some people have said that since they never get to see me anymore, they'd have to find out things through my blog. And I haven't even been updating that. Well here you go, this is what's been going on. And for those of you that I miss a lot, but make myself so busy that I never get a chance to see you, I'm sorry. I want to make time for my friends, I no doubt will be ranting in future posts about graduation and all that, but I'd much rather discuss it with you in person. Face-to-face communication most definately was a better invention than the blog.

Updates Are A-Comin

Hey guys, I'm sorry that my blog updates have been nonexistant... I've been really busy. Everything is piling up at once, I'm preparing an update soon, so hold tight. Thanks. I'm preparing this in about the only down time I've had today, via the LAN. For those of you that know what that means...

Take that Buffalos

A 33 Point Win is enough to get me pumped about March! As if I wasn't excited already. I stopped over in Cain breifly to watch tip off and the first minutes of the game. I then listened to the rest of the game. We are on a roll. Bring on the t-sips. After our first ever Big 12 Conference Win, things are good in Aggieland. Gig Em Aggies and BTHO t.u.!

Quick Note

Monk-E-mails are off da chain! This one courtesy of Clinton!
Monkey Time!

I have got a killer case of the hiccups from this new game Clinton showed me.
What you do it click on the link above and then change the numbers around so you can hear other people's messages...

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

2PM can't come fast enough... BTHO CU! And get me some cable at work so I can watch the game!

I'm back

Here you go, I'm back. For how long? I don't know. Spring Break is on its way in, so I'll be heading out. Corpus is the destination this year. People that asked my plans, responded with "Oh fun!" when I told them where I was going. I then had to remind them that I am from Corpus... But it should be fun. I get to see the family, eat some Mexican food and hang out with Penny who will be accompanying me for the week.

But for now, I'm back. I have a computer once again. A brand new Dell. It's nice, I like it. Just weird. I'm still in the mindset that this isn't my computer. It's just different. It lacks all of my files. Everything I've collected in my college career. Everything I've written, all of my pictures, school assignments and projects, my 300+ away messages... They are all embedded into a crashed hard drive that the nerds at work assured I could recover only with a couple of thousands of dollars and a company specializing in that sort of thing... So I'm trying to recover what I do have in my outbox.

So that's not that exciting. What is exciting is the state of our basketball program. With our Women firmly secured with a slot in the NCAA tournament, we're just waiting for selection Sunday so that they can announce our men will be joining them. With the disappointment of the recent football seasons, I'm starting to believe the sarcastic comment I once made, "Don't worry. Texas A&M is a basketball school." I know that's obviously not true. But I've never seen so much excitement in the air in March. A&M's basketball program has arrived. Now just sit back and watch.

Now I'll leave you with a picture of me from the camping trip last week (recent pictures are all I currently have). Peace.

MR DUCKS

Ok, well I got a computer now. I'll be back in business soon enough. So that's the update for now. I got back from camping this evening and now I have a paper to write for class tomorrow. Studying for Tuesday's test has therefore been pushed back to tomorrow. So although I'm too busy to write a good entry, I will leave you with a short story that I remember from my childhood. Hope you can translate it...

Frank: MR DUCKS!
Hal: MR NOT DUCKS!
Frank: OSAR.
Hal: MR NOT DUCKS!
Frank: CDEDBD WINGS?
Hal: LIB MR DUCKS!

Not Feelin It

I finally have time to sit here and update this thing. But I don't feel like it. Maybe this long week has finally caught up with me. The going to sleep with Tylenol PM and waking up with Caffeine every morning has taken its toll on me. I woke up early this morning for FMBWC and it hit me like a shoulder to the mouth (which I can obviously relate to) and hasn't let up yet. I'm just out of it, I've been dragging all day. And now, with 30 minutes left to work, I can't do much more than watch the live stats for the baseball game and listen to this Christian Gangsta Rap as the Xerox guy looks at me with a disapproving glare from behind the machine. Time is ticking by slowly, but soon enough it'll be home time. Well, first will come, walk across the cold, drizzly campus time. But nap time will no doubt shortly follow. Hopefully this weekend will provide a good chance for me to recharge and get some much needed rest. I hope you all find some rest this weekend. It will be a cold, dreary weekend. The kind of weekend perfect for relaxing indoors...

A Healthy Snack

Here's a little something to hold you over till my next update.
A couple of links that were brought to my attention that I found entertaining:
1. Friends Theme Song
2. c101's Two Guys In The Morning Wrote a Couple of Songs For Dick Cheney. Quality entertainment, we don't have any decent radio personalities or morning shows in CS, not even when we try importing the shows from Houston... Two Guys In The Morning are classic and are definately in the top 10 things that are great about Corpus list...

A Chris Sighting!

Just a real quick note to give the Batt props for capturing me in action on Mt. Aggie. I was skiing down the mountain Thursday, my ski came off near the bottom and the photographer snapped a picture just before I ate it. I went down hard, put my phone out of commission for the remainder of the day. The next day though, here I am on page two, right next to "African American Hero" Arthur Ashe.

Jobs, Careers, Employment...

Alright, I just lived through 2 immensely busy days! It has pretty much slowed down back to normal mode. Hopefully I'll find some time at some point to go to the grocery store and clean up my room... Career Fairs, Interviews, Sending Resumes off... Senior year climbs to a busy apex that I imagine College is all about. I've had to get all fancy pants and talk to various people about my future. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll get used to all this grown-up stuff. That probably involves me getting my suit dry cleaned... Never done that one before.

Anyway as my priorities show, blogging probably hasn't been at the top of my list. That's mainly because I don't imagine any blogging scouts are out there waiting to recruit me and also because I prefer to use the precious hours I am at home to sleep. That being said, I had an interview yesterday for an amazing oppurtunity. It was only the first interview, but it's something I can get excited about. Hopefully I'll be hearing back for a second interview so I can get to know the people and the company a little better. The job would come with the title of "Marketing Director" which includes a lot of responsibility, but is exactly what I want.

At the career fair, I met with a couple of companies that I'm actually interested in, so I'll be in corespondence with them. That's what I used part of my afternoon for.

Other than that, what else am I excited about? Well, opening day of baseball is this weekend. Honestly, of all Aggie Sports, baseball is probably near the bottom. Couple that with the fact that most of the games directly interfere with my schedule, I'm hoping I can make it to several, but I'm not making any promises. Basketball is exciting again. And growth group is tonight. I have a great group of guys and I learn a lot about the Lord's love and knowledge from them. It's sure to be the highlight of my week.

Look at that! 5 Paragraphs for your update. What? You're not counting the 2 sentences as a paragraph? That's why I have such a hard time updating for you people. You're never happy...

Forecast

Ben has a gimmic and I like it. He focuses a lot in his blog on meteorology and giving us the local weather forecasts. Now, without a background in meteorology, I can't really compete with that. So as a Marketing major, I've decided it's my duty to give you my official Super Bowl Commercial Forecast!

The Super Bowl is the big time for advertisers as well as the teams in the game. Even if the viewer doesn't care for the game, you can guarantee that they're looking forward to the commercials. Last year was a rather boring year for these advertisments, companies took a pretty conservative approach to their commercials and the result was a lackluster showing. This year however, you can bet that the commercials will be some of the best you've seen in a while (other than the Nextel commercial with the dudes dancing to Salt and Peppa in the office, that one is pure genius). This night of advertising greatness will definately contrast last year's disappointment. Second, there will be more products targeted to the ladies. Companies know that women watch the game and quite often it's either to spend time with friends/family/significant others or for the commercials. So, the game will be more enjoyable to the women as clever commercials are directed to their pleasure. Now, thirdly, you're in for some bad news. The bad news deals with Burger King. Not only will they be showing undoubtedly a new King commercial (the burger king creeps me out), but they will also be using the new advertising technology to send a message straight to your Sprint cell phone (a strategic allience they have) as the commercial ends offering you the opportunity to download the ad to your phone. An inconvenience and hassle I know. But text messaging and multimeda messaging ads will soon become a way of life, thanks in large part to this publicity stunt by Sprint. Lastly, I'd be willing to bet you'll see another ridiculous GoDaddy.com commercial that has absoultely no meaning (I'm still not sure what that company is for) and scantly clad women. So there you have it. Oh, it may also be partly cloudy...

Lastly, I hope the Seahawks lose. They know they're in the wrong on this 12th Man case, they recieved the letters asking them to stop. They got the cease and desist order. And still they use it and now postpone the case by changing venues. They know they're in for a fight. And now thanks to all the hippies and the PR people they have up there, they switch the whole case around and blame it on us. There's nothing I'd like to see more than the Seahawks get annihilated. Then we'll see how loyal this supposed "12th Man" is.

I thought this was pretty stinkin funny. Turn it up, enjoy, and have a good weekend.
http://images.radcity.net/5462/1302488.mp3

Someone's on to me...

A comic from today's Battallion (A&M's campus paper):

Private Investigation

Tuesday afternoon, I need some food in my belly, I need to pay bills, and I need to get to class. So, once again, I have very little time to update. But let me tell you a story during this time.

We always like to be in the background of random pictures, just hanging out, doing whatever. It's good fun for the people taking the pictures, because if they're like me, then they enjoy looking around in the background of their pictures to see what else was going on as their picture was being taken. However, we don't normally get to see the fruits of our labor. At the basketball game Wednesday night however, I let Clinton know that we were going to be in the background of the pictures being taken in front of us and then we were going to locate them on Facebook. Later on, I heard the word "Facebook" uttered by on of the students in front of us and I knew our plan was possible. On Sunday, after a little investigating, our plans came through and we achieved our goals. We found the names of the strangers that were sitting in front of us and that led us straight to our photos. I found several pictures of us in these people's pictures, but none of them more clearly illustrates our desire as this one:























Check me over their shoulders. Intense part of the game..? Nope, look at the faces of everyone else in the crowd besides me.

Sorry if you don't like my story, I'm not sure if many would. But I was impressed. Have a good week, see ya next time.

One Semester to Go

I'm graduating. It's official. My prof from last semester finally put my grade through, called me during my nap and informed me I recieved an A and she sent out the paperwork to the registrar yesterday (the day before my degree audit was due) so I was able today to look at my final grades for the semester (4.0 baby) and apply for graduation. And now I recieved an email entitled "Preparing for Graduation." Whoa...

Meanwhile I'm pretty busy living the life of a college student. With a hectic work/school schedule, it's good that two of my classes are Kineseology. Soccer is pretty much my favorite class of all time (I was straight MVP this week), it's a good morale booster to have a KINE class so you can realize that you're not that out of shape compared to some people... Also, my Snow Skiing class is a good time to practice for other activities, such as shredding down the stairwell outside my apartment on an ironing board. It doesn't get anymore "college student" than that. Pictures coming soon.

I had my first growth group of the semester last night. We met at Chicken Express, probably the best place to have a bible study other than a church. And even churches don't have free refills... Coach Gillispie dropped by to purchase a gallon of Chicken Express tea. We greeted him and wished him luck this weekend. Cool guy, still my favorite coach on campus.

And remember the final semester of FMBWC is in full swing. We're meeting at 7AM at Sbisa on Fridays. Don't miss out. Cause once it's over, that's it...

That's all I got for now. I'll be back in action next week, count on it. Until then, a shout out to all my undercover readers, it's ok, leave me a message on here. No one will judge you. That goes for you too Bro. Tim...

Slow Motion

It hasn't been quite a week yet since my last post, hopefully I'll be able to write something longer tomorrow. As for right now, I'm rushed off to Snow Skiing, but first I'm going to grab some scrumptious cajun food from Hebert's... I think I'll go for the jambalaya today. I just decided right now. So y'all are the first to know, a little gift for being so patient with me. Updates are coming. I promise.

An Oldie

Yeah, once again I'll use the excuse that I'm still trying to get into the swing of things. It's 4:50, so I have 10 Minutes left at work, so all you'll get from me is this:

Spring Break 2004

I was reminded of this yesterday (I went snow skiing on Mount Aggie yesterday), I read through it for the first time since writing it. I noticed lots of typos... I wonder what I can do about it. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. So here you go, enjoy some Classic Chris in my abscence.

Catching my breath

Yeah, yeah, I'm still alive. Yesterday was my last first day of school of my life. I'm going strong, just gotta get into the swing of things and I'll be updating more. I promise.

And Happy Birthday Zachary.

Peace...Like a river.

The Look of Humiliation

I made a discovery yesterday. It turns out that some coworkers from across campus were at the basketball game in which I competed in a halftime event. Well, I knew someone was there, as shouts "Yeah! CIS!" rung from the crowd, I just didn't know who exactly it was as I couldn't find their faces in the crowd. I'd been trying to figure it out over the past couple of weeks. And finally, the payoff. I found out today that it was some people over in Cain (SIMS) and they shared with me some pictures that they took that night. Let me set the scene for you. I was called from the crowd and asked to be in a bike race. Well, they brought out my competition (a 7 year old) and his bike (small tricycle). They decided to pair me up with an even smaller bicycle (if I can even call it that, it would be better compared to a roller skate.) Whatever. I was beaten handily, barely able to stay on and almost falling on my face numerous times. Once I reached the finish line, some of his little friends were waiting to heckle me. I got back to my seats and sent Penny a text message to let her know that her boyfriend had been "embarassed by a 7 year old." All the spectators agreed that it was a ridiculous request of them to ask me to ride that thing... But what could I do. And now the discovered pictures:


















This bike is approximately the size of my shoe...lace.


















Me struggling, the kid firmly planted on a seat thinking he's a
stud. Let's see him get in the Sumo Soccer Ring with me...


















Humiliating College Students. That's what Halftime is all about....

Few and Far Between

That's how my blogs have been. I haven't been very consistant on blogging, but we've actually been pretty consistantly busy at work. Plus not a whole lot has been going on. I had the day off yesterday and will be off Thursday and Friday too. So what, I'm a bum? But this bum has to be in Corpus to get his teeth fixed at the end of this weekend.

Let's see, what else have I been up to? Roadtrip to Lousiana, hanging out in the A&M Consolidated Press Box, and playing some non-contact sports like volleyball. Overall it's been a pretty busy break, but I've had time just to kick it and relax at home. I like it. I've been looking at my schedule for next semester though and it's going to be hectic and pretty crazy. I'm going to have to reschedule my growth groups as I have a class from 5:30-8:00PM on Tuesdays that directly interferes with GGs. Who has a manditory class that is only offered at that time? People that want to make my life stressful. It's my last semester though, so I'd better enjoy it, eh?

In other news, my Panthers tore up the Giants. Which means they'll be facing off against Ben's Chicago Bears. Carolina has always been a fun team to watch. They've been a team that's played with real heart and a rabid defense. This is the first time they've really had a acclaimed playmaker (Steve Smith). They've had to come from being practically unknowns (even after playing in the super bowl 2 years ago) to a threatening playoff team. Watch 'em, you'll enjoy it.

Also, the Aggies are faring pretty well in basketball (both men's and women's) with conference play starting. Another team with a lot of heart that is a lot of fun to watch. Hopefully they'll be just as threatening.

Lastly, we just got back from Bennigans to partake in some Time Crunch Lunch. Time Crunch Lunch promises food in 15 minutes or your meal is free on the next visit. It took over 18 1/2 minutes to recieve our food, it wasn't our waiter's fault. Still he refused to give us the free coupons. Oh well, we let it slide. Nick's not such a bad kid, he gave us potato soup to soothe us.

Keepin' At It

With my new pillowtop matress cover, my bed is even harder to get out of in the morning. One of your most important investments is your bed. You'll spend most of your time there and it's a very important part of your life. Don't skimp.

I had to call into the dentist today to make an appointment for a checkup on my busted up teeth. They're progressing well, but the dentist still requests that I come in. I decided that Friday the 13th would be a good day for a dentist appointment. So it seems I'll be driving 4 hours for a check-up. It's all good though. One last trip back home before school starts, and one more trip to Fermins.

But now I'm sitting at work, I guess it's about lunchtime. I'm glad because this decaffinated tea tastes like cigarettes... Who buys decaffinated tea anyway? What's the point?