Me vs Vampires

If there is one thing I've learned in the world, it's that I can't win the fight against stupidity. I have several upon millions of examples, but I'll use Twilight. Despite the terrible acting, 3rd grade writing, and the unpleasantness of vampires, this fad is blowing up the world. I'm completely in love with Harry Potter and I'll spare you all of my thoughts on why I think they are different. But they are. For example, Harry Potter took some thought to write. Anyways, upon the arrival of New Moon in theaters, I want to throw up. But I'm not gonna. I might even watch them if ever the time comes when I don't have to pay for it. I hate people who hate books or movies or tv shows or songs just because they are popular. I mean what's the point in that? If a song makes you tap your toe, dang it, listen to it. I don't ever want to be that kid, it's just that with Twilight, I hate the idea of a vampire being in love with me and stalking and protecting me like a creeper. That's not attractive. But look on the bright side, haters of culture. The world won't get any smarter but soon it'll be old moon and no one will care. Better days are ahead.

Noddin my head like yea

One of my dear friends, Kalli, had her 21st birthday party this weekend and let me tell you how much I love that girl. She moved into my life as a young 18 year old when I was a young RA, running the 2nd floor of Phelps. Not all the girls on my hall were jewels, let me just tell you. But me and Kalli were pals from the first moment we realized we had the same wardrobe. Later on we realized we both wanted to be rappers when we grew up. I was pleased to hear that her birthday celebration was a thug party and now I want to always dress like a thug because it's really comfortable. We got home and went straight to bed cause we basically had our pajamas on. The sentimental part of this story is me mentioning how much I love to see people grow in my life, it's a really cool thing. I met Kalli on her first day of college and I can't wait to see her graduate in May and that is just a gift from Jesus to have friends like that, ya know? I have lots of friends who I've seen grow over short and long periods of time. I just like it. I would say I feel like she's my kid and I'm proud of her but that's awkward and she acts more grown up than me a lot of times.

Something you should know about you

Lately (this weekend) I've been thinking a bit about heaven and hell. The judgement house that I went to on friday night with the youth group was pretty cheesey with a few scary parts, mostly hell was scary. It didn't make me question my salvation, rather, it got me thinking about the state of heaven and hell. I mean I like to joke around about them both. You've probably heard me say things like in my version of heaven we'll all eat chicken fingers, David Crowder will lead worship, and the gamecocks will win every single game eternally. Perfection for me. I also describe the devil as being sunburned and wearing an orange t-shirt with a huge tiger paw and everyone eternally sucks at football. Scary. As we all talked about it for a bit in bible study, I got on a mini rant and said how I cant wait for everyone's attention to be on Jesus. I can't wait for the focus to stop being on ourselves. My serious side beleives that I wont care about anything else when I get there because I'll finally get to kick back with Jesus. Us Christians won't be seeking attention from anyone else or for any reason ever again. Only Jesus will matter and He'll get the eternal attention and glory he deserves. Man does He deserve it. I'm reading through a completely rad book called "Don't waste your life" by John Piper and in chapter 2 he talks about glorifying God and delighting in God and what that means. He talks about how alot of people ask, "Why would God be so concerned with us if the universe is so huge?" I mean we are so insignificant compared to all the galaxies and stars and hugeness floating out there beyond us somewhere. But Piper says, "Beneath this question is a fundamental failure to see what the universe is about. It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man." Holy crap. I've never even thought about that, because when I think about the greatness and bigness of God I always think about it in terms of myself. Dang it. It's like going out to the Grand Canyon but instead of getting to stare at all it's beauty, we get to the top and get put in a room full of mirrors. Wouldn't that suck? You are small and you want too much attention for yourself. That's what God thinks sometimes. In heaven we won't focus on ourselves or people. Jesus will be too much awesome to even handle. bring it.

People

I love community. Love talking to people, listening to people, praying together, laughing together, singing together. I love the whole package. But even with all the beautifulness of Christian community, it sure can get annoying. In my opinion, if you aren't building up the people around you, if you're not helping the people around you become better people, then I think whatever you're doing besides that is pointless. Maybe sometimes among my group of pals I come across as the "mom" and i get way too defensive when it comes to my friends and the decisions that they do or don't make. I have to be careful because through that sometimes I seek my own self-righteousness and the feeling of proving to the world that my point is right. I really think that in Christian community, you not only have the responsibility of helping your pals grow and be better, but also you must listen to what other people say, people that you trust. It's not always about dishing out the advice or calling out the wrong actions. It's also about learning from each other and listening to each other. We Christians are pro's at sitting and hearing preaching from the preacher dude or listening to Godly wisdom but then walking right out the door like we never heard anything. Change and growth needs to happen to follow Christ. Following is an action. When you're following someone, you don't just stop halfway through and say "screw it, I'm gonna still do my own thing." Why? Because you'll get left. This annoyance isn't just something I thought about on the ride home. It's in fact the peak of my frustrations at the current moment. I get frustrated with community when I see us not acting according to the gospel. And I'm not Jesus in this story. If anything I'm a selfish pharisee who gets told what to do by Jesus but calls it whack and continues down my own road sometimes. Talking about these things within the given community helps. The good word tells us to seek out our pals and chat about what's up (not exactly in those words, but you get it) But I don't know what happens when the person won't listen. I haven't figured out that part yet, readers. Most of the people I roll with these days are younger than I am, and me and Jesus have had our own set of battles with solely that sentence. But what i feel called to be lately is not the 23 year-old know it all, but someone who builds other people up. No matter what the age. We are called to love our neighbor and unfortunately we dont get to pick who that is. So younger or older, God wants me to help my friends be better people if I can, and hopefully we'll all mature in the way that God defines maturity. And I pray really hard that that is the the goal for others so that they can build me up and tell me when i'm wrong when i screw up. Community that is worth anything does not function without Jesus. It simply can't and won't. And I'm a firm beleiver that He would call us to build up and listen to each other and love each other deeply, and help to change each other. Just a thought.

The Bronx be ballin!

For those of you who don't know or don't care, the Yankees are going to the World Series! I was telling my mom the other day how it just doesn't pay off to live around here and be a sports fan sometimes. Carolina Panthers, Carolina Gamecocks, Clemson (admit it orange fans, yall don't win championships) and Atlanta Braves. They all for the most part suck from year to year and that's ok with me, I'm a faithful fan. But the baseball t-shirt that I rock on a warm day reaches far beyond this region, for I am a New York Yankees fan. Calm down, I know the yankees spend more money in one day than you or I will ever see in a lifetime, but hey, you gotta spend money to make money. And don't you dare tell me that the Red Sox don't spend just as much money on their players because I've looked it up, they're almost equal. That goes for all of the big market teams in America. Los Angles, Boston, New York. Those cities are rolling, so it makes sense that their sports teams would cash in too. No matter what the managing strategies may be, the Yankees are a legendary team with some crazy winning records. Derek Jeter is my favorite player of all time and he has been ever since I started playing shortstop in coach pitch softball as a youngster. Those were some good days. I reckon he's the only reason I became a fan, but now I hate the Red Sox so much that I could never go back. Be happy for me, because no team of mine ever wins games much less goes to any sort of game that means something.

And now for the quote of the day, and the reason why I love working in the physical education department...
Student: "Did the Jets win yesterday?"
Dr. S: "Yea 38-0. We played the Raiders, so we were basically playing a high school team. But we won."

quote of the day

Me: "why do all of taylor swift's songs talk about kissing in the rain?"
Brittany: "text me through the phone!"
Grace: "why can't we just kiss inside where the weather doesn't matter and we won't have to call long distance?"

quote of the day

You had to be there...

Erica: "I caught a cricket in this bag."