mikeyben's Xanga

Freakyness!

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 20:13:45 GMT

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 :).

I'm not here to disappoint...

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:44:51 GMT

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

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 03:06:54 GMT

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.

Finding the Bright Side

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:51:15 GMT

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...

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:27:28 GMT

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.

Oh yeah... I have a blog

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 05:05:10 GMT

Just kidding, I didn't forget. I've just been crazy busy and not really having time to update. I spent Wednesday afternoon through Saturday afternoon at SLI - the Summer Leadership Institute for the Bonner Leadership program (being in that program comes with being a part of semester of service). However, I was really unaware of what it meant to be a Bonner Leader, most schools identify themselves as a "Bonner Leader school" or a "Bonner Scholar school" - the difference being that Bonner Leaders do 2 years while Scholars do 4. People in the program are required to do either 10 hours of service a week or they are required to do 200 hours in a year. While the program I'm in only lasts for a semester - its messed up and doesn't make complete sense to me.

Work last week was interesting. I had a talk with my supervisor about how I was kind of feeling lost and stressed about my job and position for planning this camp. She pretty much told me that there isn't much direction that I can be given, she told me "its like throwing you in a pool if you don't know how to swim" which is just obviously difficult. I realized that I have to plan the curriculum for the summer camp for the four grade levels. And while I am planning this curriculum - I am on the same level as the other teachers, not a director of the camp. So this job is going to be kind of stressful for the next 2 weeks. But I guess I can't fail at it - I just have to figure out where to start.

The conference this weekend was a lot of fun - I really bonded with Ashley, Eileen, and Rachael really well - they were the other three students who went with UD's semester of service program. Initially Eileen was the only person signed up to do service, but then with a great sales pitch from the service director (Craig) and the encouragement of the gals, I caved and we all signed up to go do service with some kids in the Toledo area. We ended up working with Navarre elementary (K-5) school on the East Side of Toledo. We stayed at a ridiculously nice retreat house - which had air conditioning and was very relaxing for me since I had been having some constant headaches for the last week and a half - I think I was just dehydrated. The first day working with the kids we just read each grade level a children's story, then had them color something creative for about half an hour increments. We did work from about 9:30-2:30 (with an hour and a half drive each way) for both days. The second day we took them to the Toledo Zoo - which was fun for the other people, but sucked fo the college students working in the class I was in because they had parent chaperones so we had nothing to do and ended up walking around by ourselves. But Craig came up to the zoo and hung out with me (along with Ashley and Eileen) for a little bit.

I ended up going to the pool today with Amy and Jama which was a lot of fun - we played basketball in the whirlpool and sat in the hot tub for a while. I think I should try and get to the recplex more often during the week - that makes it sound like I go there, I mean that I should try and go, period. Hopefully we'll return to the pool on Tuesday... and tomorrow I'll get to work out after I come home from work. But I'm going to try and get there at 9 so I can get a full 8 hours in while its possible. Once summer camp starts I think I'm going to be struggling to get in hours. So its off to bed...

What a weekend

Sun, 28 May 2006 16:11:45 GMT

So I've had a pretty good weekend thus far, until I woke up this morning with the splitting headache that I went to bed with (and yes I took Tylenol both before and after bed).

I drove down on Friday, after relaxing at my house for a little bit in Dayton and getting kind of organized. I got home about 9ish and spent pretty much the next hour and a half just sitting in the living room talking with my parents - something that has really never happened before. I told them all about my job and the people I work with, my housemates, and everything else going on in life. I didn't really get frustrated with them all weekend which is very remarkable. Then Chris called and wanted to hang out so we went to BW3's so that we'd have a place to sit and talk - and everybody knows how much I like BW3's. We sat there for about an hour and a half just talking about a lot of stuff, marriage, ROTC, old friends, it was actually a really good conversation. For some reason I felt fulfilled by just hanging out with my parents and Chris. I guess I always got frustrated with my parents and kind of felt like they never asked questions or got involved in my life and this was a way for them to do that. With Chris I guess we always just goofed around, we had times that we'd just talk about stuff going on but like I said before I feel like I always made fun of him and tried to be better than him. Friday was just a different night.

I brought stuff home that I was wanting to read - such as Every Man's Battle and stuff that I have to read for homework but somehow I had no free time. Saturday morning I looked at cars in the newspaper and credit cards with my dad. Again - this was an experience I had never really had before. My mom was gone so it was just us, so we were pretty relaxed about it and he actually took a lot of advice I gave him about what kind of car to buy for my sister (her car got totaled when she got hit by a drunk driver about 2 weeks ago). Once my mom got home though we had to stop what we were doing because she wanted my dad to do "work." So I left and went and played tennis with Andy and Sam. It was funny because I didn't have any tennis shoes since I just wore my sandals when I drove down so I had to wear my dad's shoes that were a size too big - but I probably played some of the best tennis I've ever played in my life, I won about half the matches I played. After that it was home to shower and to my aunt's for dinner since apparently my grandma's birthday is sometime soon. I kind of left there early to go to Tim and Johanna's so that I could help/ hang out with them along with Noah and Emmi. Man do I love my nephew and niece. Emmi is starting to get really active (she'll be a year in September), she can sit up on her own, crawl, roll over - this is making her sound like a dog heh, but she's really cute and she's pretty smart too. Noah is a lot better with his speech (he'll be three in October) - its to the point where he can respond to your questions and pretty much hold a conversation with you. He loves his sandbox and his toys though.

So its been a pretty unusual - but awesome weekend despite still battling this cold. Today its off to UD for a bit and to Toledo to visit Craig. I'm excited to visit Craig and hang out with him for a little bit. There's always more to come...

Ups and Downs

Fri, 26 May 2006 14:32:47 GMT

Well today is the last day of my first week... my job doesn't excite me too much but I'm hesitant to say I don't like it - this is kind of something I'm stuck with for the summer so I'm trying to keep a positive mind so that I don't begin to hate it. Basically I come into "work" (I don't have an office or anything) and sit on my computer looking up ideas for summer camp on my computer. Yesterday Katie emailed me a list of websites that had awesome ideas but they stressed me out because I realized how much prep work I'm going to have to do. Besides planning the summer camp I go to the after school program called Miracle Makers which is for the kids that go to this school which is through Dayton Public Schools. The kids are pretty frustrating... not very well disciplined at all, some are awesome but majority just are frustrating. For the summer camp I have my own classroom, I'm hoping I'm not the only one facilitating the classroom. It should be interesting.

I'm missing Katie like crazy today, she emailed me pictures of her new perm and it just made me nostalgic of being with her at her house. Things in our relationship have been kind of up and down lately - but in a good way. The time apart always allows us to look at the relationship and see if its going where we want it to go, then we can make adjustments so that we are leading each other in the right direction. Its awesome to be able to have someone who isn't going to leave me for my mistakes (to a certain degree of course), but at the same time its difficult for me to see where we've made mistakes. Of course I'm always willing to adjust. Lately she's been bringing out things in me that I've never been used to before - such as the fact that she's not going to be tempted to leave me when another guy flirts with her or that she loves me for me so the mistakes I make don't really provoke her to leave me. It's a hard concept for me to grasp because in the past, such as high school, when I felt attracted to a girl I always felt like I had to constantly impress and fight to win her attraction - so I'm not used to being guaranteed (to a certain level) that I don't have to do that with Katie. I kind of stopped reading "Black Like Me" because I didn't really have the motivation to sit down and read it right now. Instead I started "Every Man's Battle," I felt this would be a book I need to read so that I don't get consumed by the physical side of Katie and my relationship as I felt I was. I just hope it applies to me instead of someone who's married.

I'm going home this weekend. Its weird because I have to work until 5:30 tonight so I won't be able to get home til a little late since I want to go to adoration, clean up my room, and pack before I leave. I was hoping to spend some time with Andy, Chris and Sam while I was down there but it looks like that might not happen. Andy's sister is getting married tomorrow - Sam is going with him to the wedding and reception. Chris is going to the Reds game tomorrow night and Columbus Saturday to hang out with his cousin. I'm leaving Sunday morning to go up to Toledo to visit Craig. I'm a little disappointed I won't get to spend more time with Chris because I haven't really had that chance in a while and I probably won't be able to see him until Thanksgiving. I think I always took him for granted and for some reason felt like I always had to be better than him and in the process degrade him so that I could be better. Sometimes I'm just real dumb and I crave attention. I'll get to see Noah, Emmi, Tim, and Johanna though which is good I always enjoy spending time with them. It should be an interesting weekend, I'm looking forward to seeing Craig and hanging out with him for the little time that I'll be in Toledo. We might go to a Tigers game - but I'm not positive.

I love you all.

I take it back, I don't want to be an old man

Tue, 23 May 2006 03:07:58 GMT

So today was my first day at work... it went well I guess. It wasn't anything too exciting. I showed up and we had a brief overview of the agency and the services they offer, met with the executive director. Everybody seems pretty nice for the most part. After that little tutorial was over and I read over some documents I came home to get my laptop so I could use it on their wireless, stopped by the library looking for a book they want me to read called "Teaching with Love and Logic", then decided to just make some eggs and sausage for lunch before heading back. Once I got back I spent 2 hours just looking around for websites for ideas of stuff to do during the summer camp and goofing around on my computer. It was pretty useless time I must say and I feel like I need to get a better grasp of what I'm planning for the camp before I can actually figure stuff out.

At about 3 I headed over to Otterbein Methodist Church to help with the afterschool (Miracle Makers) program. The kids pretty much have half an hour for snack, then they do their homework and play in the gym until their parents pick them up - lasts til about 5:30. I really enjoyed working with them in the classroom because I feel like I adequately handled and helped the kids. But I didn't quite enjoy the snack time and gym time with the kids because all the other people I'm working with are women in their 30s who just talk about whats going on in their life and since I don't know them its just awkward because I just stand there with my hands in my pockets staring at the kids. I want to interact with the kids but I think this time is meant for the kids to just get their energy out.

I came home and took a nap, slept through my cell phone alarm, until Kyle came in to tell me we were eating dinner - Monday nights all the people in Semester of Service have a community dinner and reflection. We watched a movie called "Homeless to Harvard" about a girl who is raised by two parents addicted to drugs. Her mother dies of aids and her father pretty much gives her up to the authorities because they don't take care of her well. She eventually becomes homeless and enrolls in a private school that is publicly funded and gets a scholarship from the New York Times to go to Harvard. It was a pretty amazing story - I almost cried at certain points. It really made me value my family.

A post or two ago I talked about how I wanted to be an old man. I think the other day I realized how I always hung out with the older crowd and always felt more mature than those around me - that sounds selfish and of course it wasn't always true, but something, and I can't remember what, made me realize how quickly life passes you by. I don't really want to be an old man, I just want to have my life in order and I guess at the end of the year I didn't - and its coming back slowly, but surely. I've been an idiot lately - saying things I should say, just generally being disrespectful and I guess I just have my moments where I seem like a jerk - but I don't like those and I want to get rid of them. I feel like I'm cocky and only want people to hear MY story without letting myself hear theirs, I want people to praise me and enjoy me. Its selfish.

I have a meeting tomorrow at 8:30 - I don't know what for, but I was asked to go with my supervisor from Miracle Makers. We'll see what happens...

I'm kinda sad... I'm not going to lie

Mon, 22 May 2006 03:14:46 GMT

Well I just got home from Church Club (Amy, Jenna, Jama, Andy P and I go to mass Sunday nights together followed by dinner) to an empty house. It was kind of creepy because I walked in to instrumental music playing in the living room with all the lights off and nobody home.

Katie visited this weekend with her friend Kara. She drove up Friday night and left tonight for Columbus to visit Marisa and hopefully to finish out the road trip by visiting Holly before heading home Wednesday. It was easier to say goodbye this time because there were a lot of people around so we couldn't quite prolong it, cry, or anything else for that matter. Once she left I had to go meet everybody for dinner. It didn't hit me until I got home that she was gone, and now I'm sad. It was a good trip - I don't feel like we did much but just lay around, watch movies, and eat at places. Which is fine, I know I don't have to entertain and I loved spending time with her and Kara, but I feel like I could have entertained better. It's just hard knowing that I won't see her until August, its hard to be away from her, that far, that long.

On a lighter note... I start work tomorrow. 9am at East End Services. I met with my supervisor on Friday about what I'm going to be doing this summer. Beginning June 26th, I'm going to be running 4 weeks of summer camp - which I'll spend all my time previous to that planning for the summer camps. Besides my duty of planning and running those summer campus, I'm also supposed to help at an after school program from 2:30-5:30 M-F; the summer camps run 9:30-3:30 M-F for those 4 weeks. It doesn't sound like many hours for right now. And I think I might spend some time working in the teen center so that I can get some more hours in since I'm required to work 450 hours. Before I found all that out I asked her what my typical hours would be and she said "you pretty much make up your own hours." I don't know if that's good or bad.

Right now I really feel like praying so I think I might go out to St. Albert the Great and hit up adoration for a bit before I go to bed. Up at 8 for my first day - I don't feel excited or nervous, I don't know what to expect or think. The Reds have been in a skid lately - sigh. I'm just in a blah mood. Its weird how love can be so joyful, so difficult and so saddening. Hopefully I'll get to see Craig over Memorial Day weekend this weekend, depends on his work schedule.

I've also been bad on updating lately... I'll try and step it up a notch. Goodnight.