Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Oh faulty lyrics

I can't think of a good song. Aside from "going away to college", but that's more about girlfriends or something.

Anyway, the point here is that Evan is moving out tomorrow. That's right. And living 100 miles away. So goes college.

I'm certain Evan's life is going to change drastically...of course it will, this is a totally new and different time in his life. See, thing is, my life is going to also be changing quite a bit.

For my entire childhood, Evan's always been there. We're basically best friends and it's pretty much always been that way. I know he's talked about our relationship a little in his blog, and everything he's said, I echo. We've always told eachother everything. And if not for Evan, there's a half-decent chance I'd be kind of an anti-social loser at school (not that I'm Mr. popularity, but you get the idea).

And now? He'll be gone? I don't think I've fully thought about what that's gonna be like. I'm basically an only child from here on out...and I'm going to have to fend for myself. It makes sense that I'd have to start being more independent. And maybe more reliant on my friends for companionship. Maybe get a girlfriend?(ha!)

It's not like those things are going to make up for his absence. Man it's going to be weird. I'm not going to know how until a while from now. Well, anyway, thanks, Evan, for a great 15 years. I hope college goes well, I really do, and I'm praying for you.

Goodbye, and...I'll see you around.

Monday, August 21, 2006

I'm not gonna skirt the issue (pun intended)

My bad. When I announced that I was accepting comments from non-registered users, I forgot to actually change the setting. Sorry about that, if anyone even noticed.

First day of school was today. Bummer, there goes the summer (ha! that rhymes!). The first day of school was not particularly eventful, for me at least. Although I do think I'm gonna go back to locker 4. I far prefer it.

One of the things I noticed right away (although this wasn't a big part of my day, I do feel the pull to blog about it) was the fashion trends. Not that they were a whole different from before, but now I guess I'm thinking about it differently than I used to. The fashion item? Low cut shirts. Man, those are so popular right now, probably half the girls I go to school with wear them on a fairly regular basis.

And I'm not talking about a loose shirt or something, I'm talking about clothes designed for the sole purpose of showing off ample amounts of cleavage. You know, the kind of clothing that's not so much for covering anymore, but for "look! look at this!"

So basically I don't understand this fashion trend. Are these girls making an effort to cause temptation and be lusted after? Because, well, that's about all that's being accomplished. Women are by no means objects, but it seems like this constant showing of cleavage appears to show that some people wouldn't be too upset with that label. To me it's pretty sad.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to attack girls for dressing this way. As big of a problem is the guys who lust after them. Which basically is every male teenager.

Unfortunately, I cannot exclude myself from that list. I've been guilty of lust about a million times over. I know it's wrong, and I know it's a sin. But every day, I'll catch myself looking down someone's shirt or something (Especially with it being so easy lately). I feel pretty guilty for it. I want to not do that at all, but there's a part of me known as "sinful nature" which, along with its friend "hormones" feels very differently. I think it's fair to say lust is one of the biggest temptations in my life right now. It probably goes for others too.

It's a real catch-22. The guys themselves are lusting, but the girls are creating and breeding these feelings of lust. It goes to show that no one's perfect.

So let's hit up the Bible for some guidance. Phillippians 4:8, a fairly familiar verse, states "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Simply put, it says that we have a command from God to think pure things. Can we, with our sinful nature, do this at all times? Of course not. I didn't have to tell you that. However, I think we should all make a conscious effort to keep our minds pure, no matter our environment.

Temptation is never going to leave, at least until we're in Heaven. So it's not fair to sit here and blame temptation for our sins(It may seem like I'm doing that here, but I take full responsibility for my sins, I'm just channelling frustration toward the temptation). Sometimes we can avoid temptation, but other times, we're surrounded. It doesn't seem fair. But we can keep our minds pure even then. God gave us some awesome gifts to help us - our conscience, and prayer. Our conscience obviously can tell us that we're doing wrong. Without my conscience, I would never have thought in this way. Lusting is an enjoyable thing, but I feel guilty about it. And it can make me realize that this is actually a sin.

The second tool, then, is prayer. We can pray for a few things considering sins. First, we can pray for forgiveness for these sings we have, but also, pray for the strength to resist temptation. And believe me, prayer is powerful. I never really believed it myself until I tried doing it regularly. So you can never know until you try.

I kind of feel like a hypocrite, because I've always been a proponent for this kind of clothing, for very obvious reasons. Even quite recently. But I think I kind of realized that there's way more to life than staring at cleavage. Will I continue to commit this sin? In all likelihood, yes. It's a weakness in my sinful nature. However, I'll pray that I, and any one of the many others being pressured by this sin will be able to resist temptation and live for the right reasons.

The signature Camp Phillip dedication to God is starting to become a permanent part of myself, I hope.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Sweet melody, you'll be singing in your sleep

Whoa. I bought a new CD - Like Vines, by the Hush Sound. It's really really good. In my opinion. And for the record, I knew about them before they went on tour with Panic. And now they're coming to Milwaukee with Jack's Mannequin. If I can get a ride, I'd be pumped.

For a few days last week I was at Camp for Jesus Cares. For those of you that don't know, Jesus Cares is a week or half-weeklong program at Camp Phillip for developmentally disabled adults. Wow, it was so much different from anything else I've ever done. It was at some points incredibly challenging, and at others, completely fun and rewarding. Everyone was kind of assigned to certain campers, although we kind of all helped with all the campers. The camper I was around most was probably Peter.

Peter was a pretty decent guy. He'd talk your ear off, usually about beating the ladies. If there was anything Peter would want to do, it was beat the ladies. Whether it was in lawn bowling, volleyball, swimming, sheepshead, you name it, Peter wanted to beat the ladies. It was kind of funny, if he got bored or tried to wander off from the group, you could always bring him back by suggesting that we "beat the ladies". He talked a lot about playing sheepshead, so I thought he could actually, you know, play sheepshead. Turns out, definitely not. So we played Jesus Cares Sheepshead - 6 people sit around a table and put cards face up in a pile. The dealer (Aaron Schulz) determines what those cards mean ("ohhh!! the 6 of spades!!! Now you have to switch places with someone else at the table, and then say 'hunka hunka love, baby!' before each turn!!!"). It was so fun to play with the Jesus Cares campers, they thought we were actually playing a real card game. And honestly, it was fun for the counselors too.

On the last night, they had a talent show, to showcase all the talents that the Jesus Cares campers had. Some of them had to be kind of a stretch (for instance, "smiling" or "being quiet") but for Peter, we played Jesus Cares Sheepshead. it was so fun to play on stage, because we're all acting enthusiastic about a game that's quite obviously being made up on the spot. Peter managed to "win" the game on stage. haha.

After Jesus Cares was over, I got a ride home with Ryan Ziche, who I hadn't really seen in a long time. It was pretty fun. Since then, I've been home for the last half-week before school starts.

Two nights ago, Evan and I went with Anna to see Pirates 2. It was the last showing of the night, and we were 10 minutes late, so they almost didn't want to let us in, because we were the only people coming to see it, and they didn't want to start the movie late. The lady let us in anyway, I think because we were being super polite and understanding about it. Thanks, lady at the movie theater.

I kind of liked the movie, all but the ending. And a few things were not explained very well, and the organ on the ship? That was just kind of dumb. Don't worry if you haven't seen it yet, the organ plays such a small part. I'm not giving away the movie for you.

And last night, Evan and I went to Sun Prairie to play footie with Jake and Jordy as we do so often. Dave was there too, so this was just an exhibition, but crazy fun anyway. As usual. We also watched all of "The Office" season one, but I fell asleep during the second episode. Nothing against The Office, I was just really really tired. Then we hung around the Hanke household until about 1:30 ish.

Evan and I were home then, with the afternoon and evening free to us. So what did we do? Why, finish off the recording for the first full-length album of Earth, Wind, and Beatbox! Oh man, what a quality piece of recording. It should be ready to go on sale by September 1st. We haven't set a price yet, but it will probably be at around $2.00 or less. So exciting, this will be the first full-length album by either of us, even with Eisenhower's existence.

I guess that about does it. Oh, by the way, if there are even any people that read this who don't belong to blogspot, I opened comments up for you guys too. Evan is trying it out, and it seems like a pretty good idea. So just leave your name and stuff if you do in fact feel the need to comment.

Cheers.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

"Hey, Muhammed, do you want a slurpie?" "No, it's against my religion/government/dead relative's morals"

^^From a conversation with Becca about the most common, yet least free person in the world, Muhammed Chang. The things you learn from Trivial Pursuit.

Yesterday was definitely interesting. A little background: My dad's company was having some sort of function for customers and vendors and other mostly boring business type jobs. I was offered an opportunity to work.

So basically I got paid to put brats in buns. I can't complain at all. And I met some pretty interesting people.

First off, there was this other guy I was working with, another co-worker's son. His name was Jamus (spelling? Who knows?). He was 19 and going into college. I spent the whole day with him, part of which we were just standing there, and the other part we were hectically replacing buns, brats, cookies, napkins, plates, etc... So I kind of got a chance to know him. It was sort of awkward for a while, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy. He played guitar, and is majoring in film, and went to the same Red Hot Chili Peppers concert that I went to. We both remember the Mars Volta absolutely sucking. I guess they've gotten good now? At the concert they were pretty much booed off the stage.

I also got to meet a bunch of my dad's co-workers and associates. Although I already knew a couple. Like this one guy, Dave. He has a ponytail and I guess his actual name is pretty weird and uncommon. But he's a cool guy. And John, who was making brats all day. I suppose I could get used to the white collar schmoozing scene if it was totally necessary.

Then I got home and took a long nap. I guess that's my day. I like Timber Creek subs.

This post goes out to the ugly, long-haired genie/cowboy/whatever he was in the other one.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

What the Feingold?!

I don't know. I feel weird. Who is Fuzz Schnulle?

All kinds of stuff happened lately. I went on this band trip thing for a long long time. There used to be an anthology written about said trip on Evan's blog, but he deleted it because of some girl. I hope he saved it on word or something, I think it was, after all, his longest post ever.

I had day camp in Manitowoc. That was really fun. Steve and I bonded more. Steve's one of the coolest people I know. If we went to the same school I think we'd hang out a lot.

I came home for a day and played soccer. Not a good idea. I think I got pretty sick.

Wow, by the way, this is so far the worst post anyone's ever made on a blog. My mind is on full ADD mode right now, and I don't have ADD. Sometimes I think I do though. I can never focus on anything. Okay, that's not true, but it feels like it sometimes. Especially during Bible studies and stuff. I try to focus on them even. I've prayed for better focus. It just hasn't happened yet. Someday...

I've been at camp for the past week. That also was fun. I added one of my campers on myspace, bet you've never done that before. I think I friend requested Geisthardt sister 2 also. What a cool bunch, those Geisthardts are. I got a letter.

Tyler Shinnick was my counselor. What a guy. We definitely had a lot of fun this week, and I think I can say the same for our campers. I think both of us were kind of hoping we'd end up leading a cabin together, and it actually happened. And the experience was definitely not a letdown.

I got a chance to write some Melon Hut verses, and be in campfire. I think I'm getting far more confident up at camp, and I'm excited about it. I really enjoy the staff, especially this year.

After the week was over, I caught up with quite a few junior staff at Culver's...because one group came in just as the other one was leaving. Hugs were given. Potato Sauce was referred to.

I came home and Evan and I had one night to spend before he went to camp for a week to lead archery. So naturally, we spent this night in Sun Prairie playing footie with Jake and Jordy. Spain and Germany vs. Nederland and England. We really sucked this time though, although we did get to see a documentary on the only photo evidence of living giant squid. It was actually pretty interesting.

Anna and I hung out today. All the buildings around her house are pretty sweet. We went to the Frostie Freeze and got cheap and awesome ice cream. And then to Shopko to get Schleef a birthday card. And then to Goodwill to buy a super cool youth soccer jersey. I am now number 24. We went to Papa Murphy's and talked to Katie for a while. That was cool.

Okay, well this post didn't get a whole lot easier to read as it went on. Hopefully it still provides for interesting reading.

Keep it real! - Blake