September 2002

Hrm, I should come up with a title. Not sure what I'm going to talk about yet. Let's see... Retreat, car, CA, people, religion, life, love, emptiness, life on IM, hrm, so much to pick from.

David's Rule #1 of online journaling, don't talk about other people.

That leaves retreat, it was a lot of fun. I honestly don't think I learned much from the teaching compared to past retreats, but that's just me personally. But interacting with, and meeting new people and old friends was very good.

Oh, my car too, the A/C is dead. Sad day :(. However, I got my bro's extra car, so I can take mine in tomorrow (hopefully with Matt's help) and not miss a beat. Let's keep finger crossed it works that smoothly.

Midterms tomorrow, and the rest violates rule #1, so, well, sorry, short entry today.

Yea! If I were a girl I'd be jumping up and down and screaming in the high-pitched girl voices as girl's do when they're excited. But I'm not, so instead I'm sitting her with no expression on my face typing this happy entry. I finally got me a job! It's cool, I don't know all the details, I will know more tomorrow, but it's only 10 hours per week and most importantly, it covers my out-of-state tuition! I get paid too, happiness. So it's a graduate research assistantship, where basically I'm working with this professor doing cool business IT related stuff, I might be helping him with his class too.

Ask me tomorrow if you want to know more about it, tonight I have to first eat dinner, since ice cream doesn't count as dinner, and secondly writeup the 4-page summary that I've been putting off.

Life makes total and complete sense to me now. Wait, no, it doesn't.

The bad:

• Sinus congestion
• Friend "issues"
• Missing friend's you haven't seen in a long time
• Missing friend's you saw just a month ago, but are in a different state
• Friend's who don't answer the phone when you need to talk to them
• Lack of job, mass of bills, shrinking savings
• 4-page case review summaries
• Figuring out my own thoughts
• Kernel Panics
• Lack of A/C in Car   (Updated: 4:29 PM)

The good:

• Friend's who are here
• IM conversations with people long ways away
• IM conversations with people 10 minutes away
• Savings account to pay bills
• Job opportunities
• God
• Safety
• Hugs
• Giving back rubs
• Getting back rubs... hint hint? :)
• Late-night conversations, or late-night silence
• Learning new stuff
• My new home for my website!

Some thoughts...

"I cannot become a better person without other people."

We cannot be afraid of our pasts. As you learn in Geology, the present is the key to the past. In other words, you got to where you are today by all the things you've done. Right or wrong, they are the things that shape who you are. However, they are not who you are, rather you are who you are. Your actions are not a result of your past, but your past should provide the knowledge and wisdom to make informed choices. Our pasts should be the catalyst for changing ourselves for the better. If we are afraid to look at our past, we cannot become a better person. In fact, we take backwards steps by repeating our own mistakes. Without other people to tell us of our mistakes, we are unaware of the faults of our past. Without this awareness, we are stuck.

Oftentimes people are weirded out that I have email dating back several years, and that I keep IM logs around for years. Why? What's the purpose? Who cares if we talked about getting together to watch a movie on December 20th of 2000? Well, I hope the discussion above sheds some light, but I confess that's not the only reason. The past is an intriguing place, and I can spend hours reading old conversation that I've had with people. It's a mild form of entertainment if you will.

That is all for today, I have homework that I should start on so it can soak into my brain a bit before tomorrow.

Definition: Genuine

• actually having the reputed or apparent qualities or character
• actually produced by or proceeding from the alleged source or author
• sincerely and honestly felt or experienced
• free from hypocrisy or pretense
• sincere, authentic

Are you a Genuine person? Do you know any? What difference does it make?

To me, one of the biggest compliments a person can give me is to tell me that I'm genuine, or something that means the same. While nobody is always 'genuine' 100% of the time, I know I'm not even close, but yet is something to strive for.

So, I'm done with my homework. Yea, I'm done with homework for Tuesday too. At least, most of it, have some reading to do for the other class and some research to be doing, but the actual stuff to turn in is done.

So I've found that not being at work for 8 hours a day with lots of break time to write journal entries makes this harder ot keep up to date, but I'll do my best.

Tidbit of knowledge: ! is equivalent to a logical NOT, so != means not equal to, for those of you non programming types.

So, I don't have much to talk about really, I've been really lazy lately. But my room is a bit more organized, and the linux server is running, so that's good. Lots of chatting and video gaming and a MST3K thrown in there too has been filling my time. Tomorrow will do some more job hunting stuff, as I now only have one job outstanding. Maybe I'm just not supposed to have a Job, but I'll keep on trying.

Procrastinating, I actually have some homework for a change! Yea, so far school has been pretty, well, dare I say, boring. I haven't updated in a while, been kinda occupied.

Last saturday was the CA Grand Canyon trip, it was a lot of fun, with some unexpected excitement.

Sunday Jenny & Andrew came over and we had some fun video gaming going on, A little Mario Kart 64 action, gotta love battle mode (sorry Jenny) and Andy & Andrew spent a few hours playing Halo. It was good times, thanks to Monday being Labor Day with sleeping in and all.

Today I'm supposed to hear back about the job I interviewed for last Friday, but so far no word. Tonight is CALM, so I really should get that 4 page paper I have due tomorrow done soon. Oh well, no more procrastinating now.