Currently Reading Angeles & Demonios/Angels & Demons By Dan Brown, Eduardo G. Murillo see related

Freakyness!

Apparently if you go to google.com and type in "mikeyben" my blog comes up... AHHH!  Stalkerish!

I had a decent 4th weekend... finished the last book and started another.  More to come later I have homework to do :).

Currently Reading The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate By Gary Chapman see related

I'm not here to disappoint...

But I'm not here to please everyone either.  It's been quite a while since my last post - I'll admit, sometimes I forget and Xanga is probably the last thing that I do.  Right now I have some free time between camp and the Milagro de Mujer program (its a program for the Hispanic women, they have dinner and then a session about a different topic every week) - I'm going to get more hours.  I'm hoping to get enough hours so that the last day (August 4th) I can take off and move/ get ready for ATL!  I miss Katelyn Marie like crazy but I am surviving on my own insanity and business.

A lot has happened since my last post - I finished Every Young Woman's Battle, read Every Woman's Battle and started The Five Love Langauges which I'm now reading.  I'm hoping to finish it this weekend and start reading Angels and Demons. 

Camp also started on Monday - I think the first couple days everyone thought I was a stressed out stiff... but I've loosened up quite a bit and had quite the revelation about my job.  I was kind of disappointed with my job because it doesn't involve much interaction with the people I'm serving, but my job requires me to run a camp - that is my position.  I am a camp director, I planned it and do almost everything except for the budget.  Theres a few odds and ends that I don't do also - and I don't do this alone either, I have great staff helping me out.  But I've learned a lot about flexibility - being flexible with my expectations and also my plans.  Its getting less stressful - although I have some pretty stressful points - such as when we sent 6 kids home today because of head lice. yippee!

Living sitations are kind of difficult - I'm having a harder and harder time living in my house and not with my friends.  But I know this is good for me because it allows me to realize how thankful I am for my housemates for next semester and it also teaches me a bit about community and such.

I've been spending a lot of my time working, sweating, and hanging out with my friends.  I really don't feel like I've had that much time with my friends - but I can't think of what else fills my time.

Yesterday night I went to the Reds game with my dad - it was Barry Larkin bobblehead night.  So he got a ticket for my brother (Tim), myself, and himself.  Well Tim couldn't go because he wanted to spend time with his family so I had to get him his bobblehead.  And you'd think the dude would jsut hand me 2 bobbleheads because I was holding 2 tickets - but no.  I had to walk through the gate once, get mine, then walk out to centerfield, leave, walk around the block, come back in and get the second one - all so he can sell it on eBay.  But I had a really good time with my dad - we started talking about the future and about fixing up things at Tim's house and my house for next year.  We talked about my job, about poverty, sports, it was just a good time to hang out.  I'm looking forward to this weekend - I'm planning on going home Friday night through Tuesday afternoon.  I want to relax a bit, spend some time with Andy and Sam, spend time with my family, and read!  Things at home are always much better now - I think its just the realization that I'm not always going to live there and that my parents aren't always going to have me extremely close.  But I appreciate them much more because we get along really well now and we talk about things going on in our lives.

So yeah... life has been quite crazy lately.  Hence I'm looking forward to things slowing down this weekend.  Hooray!  This was pretty general... but I apologize.  Enjoy the day!

Still searching

So things have been going pretty well lately, I guess.  I really am moving on planning this summer camp - I have all the lesson plans done, the schedule put together, teacher binders kind of finished.  I'm just waiting for registration to fill up before I go shopping for materials next week.  I spent Friday going crazy at work - so busy that I didn't even stop to eat lunch until like 2ish just because I was on such a roll.  I feel like at the end of the day I feel like I accomplished so much then I'm trying to tell people about it and it sounds like I did nothing - heh.  I spent the night at Erin's last night with a few peeps and we went up to Adam's grad party today - which was good but I had to leave early to get home (in Cincy) for dinner with my 'rents.

I was sitting at Adam's party and I just kind of got in a mood.  I was just thinking about stuff... I was watching Adam's brother, Mark play with his band (they were the band for the party) and they were pretty good for a high school band.  At one point their drummer was going nuts with some solo that was really good, you could tell he was just doing it on the fly, but it was good for that kind of skill.  Everyone was all impressed and clapping, etc.  I just sat there thinking... what am I really good at?  It made me realize that I don't have some hobby that I am really good at.  I feel like people could sit around and talk about me and be like "oh he's a good listener, but sometimes..."  I just feel like I want some type of tangible activity that I have some decent skill at.  I know people would say things like I'm a great friend, a good listener, good at comforting etc. but I guess I'm just not satisfid with that.  It kind of made me feel worthless.  I was also sitting there and I learned that there's so many things in the world that I just don't know about that I want to understand.  Like last night we were laying outside watching the stars and I really don't know anything about the stars.  That's just one example of many things that I want to know about - some desire to never stop learning.

The Pasternack family makes me so jealous and envious - not to an unhealthy level where I like have a grudge or something, but I can tell that there's just so much love in that family.  I feel like they are so close and they have that family to fall back on.  It just seems to awesome - they're like the perfect family.  I guess that's another thing that made me feel worthless - I was thinking about how I don't have a really good skill and I was wondering if some day I would really be a good father, if I could really step outside my comfort zone to be fun with my kids.  I was watching Kevin play with some random kid at the party in this tree house - he was throwing sticks down and just goofing around with this 8 year old and I was thinking, wow he's so awesome with kids like that, he's going to make a great father some day... will I though?

Just being hard on myself again - I feel like I need some book on how guys are like that and can't admit their faults, etc.  I'm weird, what can I say.  It makes me miss the days of high school when I had stuff I was good at - I was good at being a statistician for wrestling, I was good (at least decent) at filming for lacrosse, I was good at planning events, delegating work, and making sure campus ministry things got done.  I felt like  I was good at doing community service - but I wonder if I got too sucked into keeping a tally of my hours so that when people asked me I could give them some concrete number.  This is probably me just worrying too much about what other people think... but I feel like I don't have any of that anymore.  I just go to work, read books, hang out with friends, go to class, etc.  I need to expand my horizons I feel like... be a comedian or something. 

*sigh*  I'm rambling like crazy.  I just want a hug.

Currently Reading Every Young Woman's Battle : Guarding Your Mind, Heart, and Body in a Sex-Saturated World (The Every Man Series) By Shannon Ethridge, Stephen Arterburn see related

Finding the Bright Side

For some reason tonight I'm feeling a bit down on myself - maybe its that I just finished reading stuff for my class about white racism and how white people acquire so many benefits because of racism against blacks.

I feel like I'm back to realizing that (compared to when I was in high school and there were always people commending me on how great of a person I was, the great service that I do, how smart I am, etc. etc) I'm a grown-up now and there aren't people who are going to recognize me for every good thing I do.  I think it takes a lot for me to be happy lately - usually its just attention that makes me happy, controlling the floor I guess you could say.  I don't like that.  Maybe its the fact that I'm away from Katie - she always compliments me... maybe I just need a hug, I don't know what's going on.  I feel like I'm planning a crappy summer camp for these kids, the voice in the back of my head is telling me I'm not, but its just a shot in the dark.  I feel like my biggest weakness is that I don't keep in touch with my friends over the summers and such.  It makes me worried to think that I do such a poor job now... what is going to happen next summer with people like Kat, Kevin and Craig have graduated and I'm not guaranteed to see them at any future point (unless we make plans of course).  I guess I need to step it up a bit and give them all a call.  I'm just so bad at that!

I got to talk to Katie on AIM today... we both got kicked off a few times and both didn't quite know what to start talking about.  Its so hard to go from being able to call someone you talk to on a daily basis at any point in the day to being restricted to whenever they are available and can get on the Internet.  It probably won't happen often and I completely understand.  I talked to Marisa too, who is also doing the exchange program with Katie (they live three blocks apart).  I'm glad they're there to support each other and such.  Marisa is definitely a sweet gal, always peppy (unless its early in the morning and she got up on the wrong side of the bed) and just fun to be around.

Today at work I finished up the math lesson plans - which sucked the most.  I had to make one for each math lesson for each class (because each class does something different).  Now I have to write all the other lesson plans (which shouldn't be too hard but will be challenging).  My goal is to write those within the next two days, then Friday put together a schedule for each day of the camp (a like activity-by-activity timeframe for the teachers to go by).  Things are starting to come together.  I just can't wait until July 21st - the last day of camp, when it will all be over and hopefully I'll be able to see the greatness of my "creation."  Wow that makes me sound like I'm a power freak or something.

I finished up "Every Man's Battle" yesterday.  It was definitely a good read - it is mainly written for married men, but a lot of it can apply to people who are dating or even single.  I found a lot of it relevant.  I've moved on to read "Every Young Woman's Battle" which is the woman's version of the book, except for teenagers.  Katie read it and mailed it to me to read, after this its "Every Woman's Battle" - make all the comments you want, I think this stuff is interesting and it really gives a good view on what type of understanding is necessary of the opposite sex in relationships and marriage.

I hate to say it but we have a cockroach problem in my house.  We've had 4 expose themselves so far - its really gross I know.  I'm always weary to go into the kitchen now.  Two have been thrown out the back door, one killed by Kyle and I sprayed another with Raid tonight, hoping that he'd carrying it back to the rest of his friends.  As long as they stay in the kitchen... granted I'd rather not have them at all, but if they get in my room I'm going to pack all my stuff up so that they don't get into it.  Ugh.  Kyle likes to name them, the first was "Harold", Kyle found his wife "Genevieve," the maintenance man found their child "Hercules" and tonight we found their friend "Bessie" - the guys of 49 Woodland, tearing apart cockroach families one-by-one.

Well this is pretty much a meaningless, weird post.  I feel like there's more to say but I really don't know what it is.

Last week I had an idea to start an "idiot book."  It would be a notebook/ journal that I'd write about all the stupid things I do or the occurrences that only happen to me.  I could talk about the time I locked my keys in my car at senior prom at Valet at Montgomery Inn in Montgomery, blocking the entire valet system of bringing in cars and returning them.  Or there was the time I farted in Katie's room while she was gone (last year while we were still "just friends") and the smell followed me so I had to waft (sp?) it around real fast before she came back.  The idea came to me last week when I was at the hot tub with Amy and Jama.  The hot tub is on a timer so that you don't sit in it too long and die, or get sucked in a jet or something crazy like that.  But usually when it goes off and people are in it someone just turns the jets back on - deeming the timer useless.  Well the first day  Iwas in there with them I watched a girl turn it on by hitting this big red button that said "Emergency Stop for Hot tub Jets" on it.  I was like "wow that's weird she turned the jets on with the emergency stop button."  Jama thinking I was being sarcastic, sarcastically replied "yeah that IS weird!"  So when the jets turned off and it was just the three of us in there they chose me to turn the jets back on.  So I walked over and hit the big red button that has "Emergency Stop" etched in it.  I felt it click in and not pop back out and I knew something was wrong.  I turned around and the jets weren't on.  Then  I walked over to them, they asked what I did and I said I hit the stop button - whoops.  They were like "no, turn the dial, the timer next to the button."  So I went back and turned the timer on hoping the jets would kick on.  Nothing.  We sat in there for a few minutes, apparently the lifeguards were snickering at me a little bit.  they wanted me to go tell the lifeguard to turn the jets on but I was afraid she'd tell me to just turn the timer and I'd have to explain that the timer wasn't working.  So we just left... and I felt like an idiot.  And I know that for quite some time when we go to the hot tub and the jets turn off, I'll be the one chosen to turn them back on, and someone will explain it to me every time.

I've been feeling quite charitable lately also - besides doing semester of service of course, I really don't feel like I do much for my job, but anyway I gave Ashley and Nate a ride to church which was cool.  Nate was really excited about the "Rock with Jesus Mass" at Immaculate conception where they play youth mass type praise and worship music.  Its always cool to watch him - he fascinates me (he's blind but he's SOOO smart).  Today I left work to give Katie (one of the gals doing semester of service) a ride to work and then I picked her up - even though her job was on the other side of town.  But I really didn't mind doing either - although I came close to running out of gas today.  First time the light has come on in a long time.  Heh.

Well time to send an email and get to bed... gnight

And the thunder rolls...

I'll admit, I couldn't think of a good title, but there was a thunderstorm the other night, so I guess that title is appropriate? I think I've fallen so far behind that I don't quite know where to start on this thing.

Work this week has been good, although I haven't gotten many hours in because I've been taking long lunch breaks.  I picked up this "project" of attendance where I had to enter into the computer the attendance for May, which means I went through each day and marked who had been there.  They use those stats and test results from the kids in the school to compare the success rates of those in the after school program to those not in the program - then they take into account the attendance rates of each student.  It's pretty cool, stats show that the kids in the after school program test fairly higher than those who aren't, and the more they come the better their test scores.  So I finished that up Wednesday and then started programming for the summer camp.  We had a meeting on Tuesday with the directors and such - it went fairly well.  I often found myself fighting to get a word in, one of those situations where you practically have to interrupt someone to get your comment out.  I'm hoping to have the schedule plotted out by the end of today so that I can lesson plan all next week - yippee!

This week I've had 3 lunch dates... which is unusual, but its been awesome.  Monday I have lunch with Jama, Tuesday was Amy's turn, and Wednesday I had lunch with Kevin at Dewey's, while he was in town for a music meeting.  It's sweet to be able to sit down with people and just talk about stuff that's going on in our lives and help each other through situations.  I think when we're all in a group we tend to just goof around more instead of actually learning about each other, so one-on-ones are awesome.  It makes me think about how last year Kathy Henry used to talk about all her one-on-ones she had and such and how energized she always was by them.  I feel like next year I want more of those!  Lunch with Kevin was sweet, I took an hour and a half lunch break that day.  We ate at Dewey's then came back to my house and just hung out for a little bit until I decided I needed to go back to work.  Kevin always feels like my big brother - in a good sense, its just we never want to stop hanging out, like its always so hard to go do what we need.  He's also very motivating to me.  He was telling me about how he's dedicating his summer to learning what God's will for him is, while putting his own desires and his personal will aside.  It's really cool to be able to talk to somebody about discerning one's vocation (note: vocation doesn't necessarily mean priesthood, it just means what one is meant to do with their life) and have another be experiencing a very similar position.  Of course my lunch with Kevin was awesome, and I can't wait til he spends the night when he's around for classes, but I can't discredit my lunches with Amy and Jama - they were a great time also!

I've moved along quite a bit in "Every Man's Battle" - I hope to knock out a big chunk of it tomorrow during the day.  I just got The Da Vinci Code in the mail yesterday, I'm hoping the prequel comes today and hopefully I'll crack those out kinda quick before I read the other books I have in line.  "Every Man's Battle" is good because it talks about a lot of impurities that need to be solved in one's life to really dedicate themselves to God and their partner/ wife.  While the book is geared a little more towards married people, I can relate a lot to the struggles and things that they talk about.  And even if I can't relate to it, its teaching me a bit about marriage.

Katie leaves tomorrow for Mexico, which hasn't really hit her yet, let alone me.  I think come tomorrow night or something I'm going to realize that I can't call her to talk, that I have to settle for e-mails.  Of course it will be quite difficult, I might have some lonely nights with my computer, but I know that its not going to hurt our relationship.  Its just one of those tough times that you go through that makes you stronger - as if being apart for the whole summer wasn't hard enough.  I love her, that's what counts, and that's not changing anytime soon.

Tomorrow night a bunch of us are going down to the Reds game... I'm excited because I'll get to see Andy B.  I miss hanging out with him and one of my weaknesses is calling people to talk and such.  Tonight the gals, a few guests, and I are having TACOS!  I love tacos.