Monday, April 17, 2006

Vent

I haven't blogged in awhile, and I haven't been very focused in awhile so I am deciding to take the opportunity to vent a little and see if I can get some of my stress out.

I got pretty sick a little over a week ago and I'm still recovering from it. I ended up spending Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday more or less in bed, with a short outing or two. If that wasn't stressfull enough, I also had two papers due on that Monday which I wasn't able to work on at all. Unfortunately they aren't done yet and that is my mission for today. To make matters worse, I had a rough draft due for another class today which I didn't work on, and I have an essay from last semester that I need to finish, not to mention upcoming work and just keeping up with the day to day work.

Needless to say, I'm pretty stressed out and I'm really feeling like shutting down and just hiding in a hole for the next few weeks, but that wouldn't do much for my grades. I'm really doing badly with my priorities and my time management and it would be so much easier to just give up with how far behind I have already gotten. I know that isn't the right thing to do and I can't let myself do that. But I will admit, it is hard right now.

It's kinda funny because the rest of my life seems to be going pretty well. My best friend has been coming to church with me, and although I wouldn't say he is following Jesus just yet, he has made some huge steps and I'm awed to watch him grow. I'm also teaching the next two lessons at my small group before our group gets integrated into an experimental ministry that our Church is trying to develop.

I am in a summer program through our school called the Romero House and I will be working 38 hours at a yet to be fully determined ministry/non-profit for 10 weeks (well, minus the time I'm going to be in Israel on a trip, which is another awesome thing that is going on!) and live with 5 other people and have meals together and seminars and fun stuff like that.

Like I mentioned, I'm going on a trip to Israel in June with my parents and a group of people from their church (where I grew up going) which should be awesome. Only sad part is that I will be missing out on some of my summer program, but as the director said, it's not like I'm asking to go to Key West.

My church is awesome and I have been really growing. There are some awesome people that I can call my friends who are so loving and supportive. Our church has a real love for the community around us so I think we really have a great focus.

So like I said, most of my life except for school seems to be going really well. I mean, even my on campus job in the University Ministry is really awesome. My mentor/boss person is really awesome and I have learned a lot from him and I have been able to be part of some really awesome things (minus a short retreat I would have gone on if I hadn't been sick) and I think we are going to have a really strong program next year.

So I'm not really sure why school is being so difficult right now. I know some of it is just plain being burned out. Maybe I took too many classes and overwhelmed myself. I think it is more a matter of me not giving all my classes the time they really needed and didn't work on my essays enough beforehand and it ended up kicking me in the butt.

Whatever the case I still need to finish strong. I already had a meltdown last semester which I don't want to repeat. I think my actual finals week will be tamer, but at the same time, I have so much now that I need to work on. It's hard to just buckle down and go for it.

On another note, I hung out with a friend of mine on saturday night that I hadn't seen in awhile. She works the night shift as a manager for a supermarket so that is partly why we haven't talked in awhile. But anyway, seeing her in person again (which is actually only the 4th time I think?) brought up some interesting thoughts for both of us, so we are going to possibily consider dating a little.

I know that with where both of us are at, it wouldn't be a super serious thing at first. This is kind of ironic for me, because I'm definetly a serious relationship kinda person, even if I'm not ready for that right now. At the same time, I acknowledge that I need more experience spending time with women if I am going to have a sucessful relationship, and it has been over a year and a half since I have dated anyone.

This is kind of interesting because a few weeks back... heck I think actually a month or so ago since I think I wrote about it earlier... I was really feeling lonely and missing being in a relationship, but that kinda faded away a week or two ago, or at least went out of focus. And here I am now, possibily looking to date someone.

I do preferace this in that we have yet to talk about it more, and I know both of us have a lot of questions going into it. I know that one of my main worries is on the sexual/intimacy side. A) I know myself, and I know that lust is an area where God is still working on me, and it was a big part of my previous relationships and something that I want to avoid. We have both been really flirtatious with each other and messed around in instant messengers and such so I would be concerned that we could really set up good boundaries... I know it's possible, it's more a matter of how much I could trust myself to want to make them.

Another kinda big thing for me is Faith. She grew up Catholic and from what I know now she is more or less disenchanted with Catholicisim. I know that she knows that I'm pretty serious about my beliefs, and since my last two relationships where faith didn't really come into play at all (and I feel is partly why they got so screwed up) I'm worried about having a relationship, even if it is fairly casual, without that foundation. One of the things I need to talk to her about I guess.

There are other smaller things, like out different interests, and time. Obviously, her working schedule is going to be really different than mine, and I still don't have a car and all those things which can be kinda annoying in a relationship, but I'm not as worried about those things as the two above. We still need to talk, and hopefully we can really get some of this out and figure out where we are and if this is really where we want to go.

It is definetly something that a lot of prayer is going to go into.

That is about all that I can think about for the moment. So I will sign off for now and try to get some stuff accomplished!

Until next time!