Yes, I am blogging from thedorms (aka residence halls) of the university.
Things are shaping up quite well this year. My schedule is extremly tight on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I have but one class on Mondays and Wednesdays and NOTHING on Fridays. Unitl the internship starts up I'll have four day week ends!
The room mates are great. One is a music major from NJ finishing everything up this year. He's very even-keeled, a little hard to get to know, but I have my ways of cracking nuts.
The other guy is full of personality and is a ton of fun. I'm truly going to enjoy the dead times in the room between evening bells.
Anyway, gotta run; time for class!
I know that many of you have seen me with a cup-o-joe before, but the truth is I never really liked the stuff that much. I've always thought that it would make a better potpourri than wake-up drink.
I think it's because the first time I had coffee was in old town Quebec in a sublevel (premier-étage, ou sur le terre) grotto that I think the blue collar workers went after getting their dole. The stuff was like burnt wood with a syrupee texture and a spray paint after-taste. You'd think that people who wish they were french would get it right!
But There are things that are starting to change my mind. The first is an ingenious machine called a conical burr grinder. My good friend Dailey could explain its inner machinations better than I, but the gist of it is that the grinder doesn't heat up the oils in the beans so that there is no bitter after-taste. Honestly, that little gadget makes the best cup of coffee I've ever had in my life!
Friday at work we started the end-of-the-summer clean up. That and an itch for a remodel of our department caused us office workers to revolt against an hideous eyesore of a table that our coffee maker and accoutrements inhabited. Naturally, in a torrent of pitchforks and dust we cleared it off and carted it out of the office with triumphant glee. Next came the re-arranging of our desks. After quite a bit of deliberation we came to a space-efficient solution and called Interior Decorating for a replacement table.
"Hello, Interior Decorating."
"Hi! We're fixing our coffee station in Book Design and we'd like to know if you have any counter-hight cabinets or modern looking tables. We're looking for something simple, maybe black or chrome."
"OK, well, you'll have to fill out a furniture request form and then we'll order what you need."
"Oh, I see. Do you have anything in stock we could look at?"
"Well, we might have something in a trailer somewhere. Otherwise you'd have to order it. Either way it would be at least two weeks before we could find anything for you."
"[gasp] OK. Um, where can I get a form?"
"They're saved on the network a whah whah WHAH whah WHAH..."
"Thanks, have a great day!"
-click
I couldn't let this snag hurt the momentum we had going. I needed some new furniture anyway. At four on Friday afternoon a coworker and I pretended to be a married couple shopping for furniture at Target. We picked up the most awesome metal rolling rack with a wooden top as well as Charles Eames inspired molded white birch plywood chair! The pieces perfecly matched each other and now serve as our mini-cafe. We can now roll the coffee maker and several blends of coffee with filters and creamers/sugars from its cozy little corner to any work station or even out into the main floor of the press! I have never been so excited about coffee!
As I've come to appreciate coffee more I've realized that the black stuff is really nothing more than a social lubricant. Coffee houses make the best meeting places. Even our humble coffee cafe at work gave our department a sense of accomplishment, that we're finally getting our workspace updated. And the lot of us staying after hours for a while to set it all up was some of the best fun I've had at work. And, believe me, nothing gets a party going like a cup of coffe at Dailey's fresh from the grinder.
Last night after wednesday evening church I ran over to a friend's house to pick up some art and talk business for a little while and then head off to accomplish great things with the remainder of the evening.
I ended up just sitting and talking and having tea for a time. It was great. I would often wonder when I was little how my mom and dad could have company over to the house and not do anything but sit there and gab. I don't anymore. I wish that I had realized at that age how truly enriching it is to know people and be involved in their lives. It is simply amazing that God has given us the ability to enjoy the company of our fellow man so deeply. All we did was talk about concerns, future plans, school, art, and other people. But somehow it was really neat.
Maybe I'm just a softy. But I think that it's permissible to put stock in the only lasting resource this planet has.
After a bout with the scalpel and the physical therapy lady Cory is back among the living.
His range of motion is slightly inhibited, but he has doffed his tether and is moving freely once again around the office.
"I feel like my head is a cloud shaped thing around my head," he replied when asked how he felt this morning.
Please reinitiate your blog anti-hijacking mechanisms.
Cool thought that Pastor Minnick casually mentioned in the middle of a business meeting:
The will of God is something very hard to escape.
Have you ever thought of that before? It really takes some haneous sin to alter the path you are on. I can look back over my own life and when I wasn't exactly following God. But I don't really think that He let me stray away from His plan. Truthfully, if you are really trying to do right and love God then you are already there, smack dab in the middle of His will. Pretty cool, huh?
Have an awesome day!
I've only eaten at Moe's twice in my life and it is already one of my favorite restaurants.
The staff welcomes you with a hearty 'Welcome to Moe's' sung with a doppler cadence. Then you choose your entré and work your way down the sneez guard as you select whatever you want from the little tubs of south-western goodies.
I've ordered the nachos both times simply because they're so good and filling. Don't let the word nachos mislead you. These babies aren't your run-of-the-mill six inch paper boat of overpriced concession stand merchandice. You get a big ol' basket of colored chips with chicken, a ladel full of cheeze, peppers, and everything else you could want. I can never quite finish the whole plate of food! And it's about six dollars (coupons are available in the LINK). It's far less expensive than eating at home (the cost of tandem ingredients adds up quickly)!
Saturday night over chamomile tea and popcorn a conversation morphed from world travel and web design to the incongruities and fallacies that plague the church today (popcorn can have that effect on people). Since we all grew up in one flavor of fundamentalism or another we could easily identify the issues: getting numbers rather than people, equating suits and ties and potluck pies with godliness, believing what we believe because pastor said so, what is separation, and others. But how do those problems go away?
“When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son…it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms; But they did not know I healed them. I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws; And I bent down and fed them.”
Hosea 11:1, 3-4 NASB
I can’t pretend to have the answer to the whole mess in my back pocket, but I can at least tell you what I’ve learned and hope that it somehow adds to what you already know and perhaps it can help.
I attended a Christian school for my four years of high school. Those years were cradled in a safe environment that taught its inhabitants the Word and matured them by an emphasis on service and selflessness. Even so I had failed to see Christianity as it should be seen: as a singular focus on the gospel and relationship with God. Instead I assumed that it was a code of standards and conduct. And somehow I was blind to all the truly important things.
But God did not leave me in my ignorance. Though he speaks these words in Hosea to Israel, as my Heavenly Father I believe He does the same for me. He taught me about trust and faith in Him. He taught me to walk (he leads me out of my immaturity). He taught me to feed on the Word. He’s shown me that he is faithful; He won’t give up on me. And He’s still teaching me all these things.
Out of these truths I’ve discovered other things. It is God and not other men that change me. The state of an individual is largely up to how far he will allow God to lead him, not what he wears to church or how tightly he holds his traditions. I’ve realized that we don’t need to clean someone up before or after he is saved, God does that. When we act in love we become a people unafraid to humbly approach someone when they’re in the wrong. When we act in love we become a people obsessed with scheming and plotting ways of doing good to each other simply because we want to (Matthew 5:44-45).
I believe, then, that the solution is found in what the individual is willing to do with what he knows of the word and the nature of God. If we don’t trust God to work in other’s lives as He has in our own then it is only natural that we would want throw rules and regulations at people (I’m not saying that rules are wrong, in fact they’re necessary, but there’s a difference between order and pharisaical control). It is up to you, and me as individuals, to dare to take God’s word for it. And if you have learned things that I haven’t then I would honestly love to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and talk about it.
Has anyone ever thrust a phone to your head in the middle of a family get together and told you so say something. Why is it that when we, who are perfectly talkative people, fail to think of anything meaningful to communicate?
After much posting of comments and casual brousing on bensfriends I have stepped up a notch.
Frankly, I have no idea what to share at the moment. I will probably post about a trip to turkey with Esin and Sycamore. I'm sure I'll refer you to Emom now and again. I'll definitely be making a monumental structure erected out of materials that can be found only in my desk at work.
The Olympic openning ceremony was really interesting (did i mention I'm a visual communications person and really enjoy designy stuff?).
Anyway, there's more to come soon.