Man, it's literally been YEARS since I've gone this long without writing here. The only reason I've found time now is because a student I was supposed to meet for tutoring at 7 called to cancel. So I'm just hanging out in the office for a bit before I head out.

To respond to what I wrote three weeks ago, I'm no longer feeling stressed out by school. I've actually done extremely well so far. I got almost a perfect score on my first major paper at Fuller. A half point off from perfect. And I didn't proof read it. I actually sent it in 8 minutes late after scrambling to finish it and the bibliography. 24.5/25. Felt pretty good. I hope that doesn't spoil me for later classes though. But I must say, if I have this easy of a time in most of my classes, I should be a shoe in for many PhD programs assuming I do well on the GRE's and everything else goes well. I could have above a 3.9 here. That's an exciting feeling. But at the same time, I don't want that to be my main focus. After my first semester at UNC, when I got straight A's, I was thinking that I would for sure pull a 4.0. When that was busted in the second semester, I was pissed. I had put too much stock into it though. This time around, I need to have a different attitude about it.

I'm looking forward to this quarter being over in a couple weeks and starting the next one in January.

Lots has changed since Nov. 6. Kat is out here now. The drive from was long, but we made it. The cats were fine. Now we just need to find a place to live!

Since I looked at this many times over the last few weeks and decided I couldn't write, I have no idea when I'll write again.

Thursday is Thanksgiving. We're going to Santa Barbara. It's been three years since we've had Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family. I'm looking forward to it.

This entry will be my last public entry. From now on, you have to add me as a friend on livejournal in order to read my entries.

Yesterday, I received notice that I was being terminated from Smarthinking for posting a confidential email here, which I have now removed. I'm assuming they found it using some kind of program that searches the text of internal emails on the web for just that sort of thing. It's my own incredibly stupid fault, and I obviously take full responsibility. I was warned about it by a friend, but I hadn't been able to find this just by searching Google, and I didn't think any employer would go to any great lengths to search on Google to find something like this. A program is the only explanation, and I didn't think of it.

I realize that in the last few months some of my posts have sort of spiraled into ranting and down to some level of immaturity. Let's just say it's been a rough summer emotionally. My journal was only ever originally meant to be a way for me to write down some basic things that were going on with me for my brothers whom I lived far away from to read, and once I moved to Colorado, for a few friends back home. I obviously didn't mind that anyone who finds it can read it. I've never shared EVERYTHING that's been going on with me. Never. But I suppose this event is sort of a wake up call. I don't know how my entries will change. Even though they're going to be viewable to friends only, I probably won't be discussing employment, even trivial employment like Smarthinking, that much. I really do feel pretty dumb about the whole thing.

On the hopeful side of things, I'm taking this as a sign that God probably wants me to be out of education for a little while and maybe get involved in ministry. When Kat and I moved here, I was feeling pretty burnt out on volunteer ministry. Lots of volunteer worship leading and other things pretty much straight from 2001-2007. I knew it was time for a break. At first, I thought it was going to be difficult. I remember when we first began attending our church here thinking it might be cool to get involved in worship ministry, but then telling myself that I shouldn't. I really feel like God made it easy to just focus on school and my marriage while we were out here.

And now I think that maybe it's time to get involved in ministry again in a much larger capacity. 1 out of 30+ job applications in education was responded to, and that ended badly. Smarthinking ended badly. Even Aims to a certain extent ended badly. I don't think I'm supposed to be teaching in an academic setting while I'm at Fuller. Once I got into Fuller and we knew that was where I was headed, I began thinking that it might be a good idea to actually be employed at a church before I start thinking of ways the modern church model can be improved upon. But I never really took the thought that seriously. Until all of this stuff happened. So I emailed Jim Gray, a friend of mine in California, to see if he could maybe help me find a job in ministry somewhere. We're kinda just starting to talk about things, so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I honestly have no idea who all reads this. I have links on my Myspace and Facebook pages, so I suppose it could be any number of people. If you decide not to continue reading, then, I guess thanks for reading. (I guess?) I suppose I don't really know what else to say.

I want to quote from a song that's been on my mind the last couple days:

We are all here to find the place where our restless souls will be free;
We were all made to see our hearts cannot rest until found in Thee.

Onward and upward.

I'm pretty exhausted this morning. Yellowstone was amazing. But we were basically driving the entire weekend. Still, got to see some pretty incredible stuff, so it was worth it. Here are a few pictures:



As you can see, I got a new hat. We stopped in Jackson Hole, WY on our way up and wandered around. We all got a little carried away. But it was fun. As always, there are more pictures on my Picasa. We took about 160, and I only whittled it down to 133. There are actually a lot of duplicates of some stuff, like Old Faithful. I probably could have cut it down more. Anyway, it was a good weekend.

Mark is on a plane right now on his way to Colorado. I probably won't see him today. (Sorry, dude!) But tomorrow, we'll be going on the New Belgium tour. It will be my fourth.

The rest of the week is going to be pretty booked up, so I have to get a ton of stuff done here today. Kat has a list, which I haven't looked at yet. 31 days until we move.

When I was down in Louisville on Thursday, my mom gave me some updates about one of our job connections in California (her friend who was going to pass around Kat's resume.) I guess there was just one firm in mind, and they have a stack of resumes with people who have 15+ years of experience. So that kind of dead-ended. My mom mentioned that her friend had another idea, but her friend didn't want to say what it was because she didn't want to get our hopes up. So who knows what's going to happen with that.

Kat still hasn't heard from the "Office Engineer" firm. But my dad talked to someone on Friday when we were wandering around Jackson Hole, and he said that there were some real possibilities brewing with that. Hopefully we hear something this week. Basically, if something doesn't happen this week, we'll have to move to plan B. Or at least start thinking about it as a much more distinct possibility.

Okay, time to get going.

So I finally uploaded the picture from our Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak trip three weeks ago. Here's a sampling:



There are more on my Picasa if you're interested.

Kat and I got a lot done yesterday. I finally made it through all of my paperwork from the last two years of UNC. My classes and well as the ones I was teaching. It took forever, but it's done. I just need to finish filing it now. Unloaded about twenty pounds of paper probably. When Kat got home last night, we emptied the garage, swept it out, and put everything back in an orderly and organized fashion. It's going to give us a better sense of how much stuff we have. Which is a lot. Kat wants me to go through a box of mine that has a bunch of crap I've been keeping for a while. I probably should. But I'm a pack rat, so it's tough. The next step is to move the boxes from our music room down to the garage. We're trying to get the house ready for staging. I think my parents are going to try and sell it.

Yesterday, somehow amidst all the work that was getting done, I had time to randomly look back at some blog posts. I say randomly, because I was looking at the tag cloud and clicking on tags that seemed odd and I couldn't remember what I would've written in a post to warrant such a tag. "Garage" for instance. So I looked at that post, saw it covered fixing the garage door opener last summer, but it contained something else of note. I had forgotten that my original plan was to take 3-4 years to finish Fuller. It just kinda changes things in my mind a little bit to remember that I at one point thought that was going to work. Maybe I don't need to take summer school. I don't know. We'll see. I'd still like to be done with the MA in two years and then have the option to do a ThM if I think I need it.

This afternoon, I'm going down to Louisville. I need to go to Costco for something, and I no longer have a membership because the closest Costco is in Thorton, 40 miles away. Last September, our neighbor (Perry) actually laughed at us for not being Costco members, as if she was in on some big secret that no one here knew about. She looked down on Sam's Club, which is just 2 miles away, with such scorn and disgust. I told her we used to go to Costco when we lived in California, and she seemed a little annoyed like I ruined her secret. Anyway, I'm also taking some tools that belong to my parents back to them to make even more space in the garage. Finally, Andrew and I are going to play a round of disc golf. It looks like the weather is going to be nice today. Hopefully thunderstorms don't roll in.

Alright, I'd better get up and get going on some things. Tomorrow we head out for Yellowstone. I need some laundry done!

I am SOOO tired of crazy employers!! Remember all those tech problems I was having and how a guy told me to just review essays?

---

How am I supposed to know not to ask a lead tutor for this kind of help? And how am I supposed to know to not trust what he says?!?!?? That was the miscommunication. She thinks that she told me not to sign back on until the problem was resolved. She didn't. I just assumed it was going to be fixed by Saturday. It wasn't. I just hope I didn't get Greg in too much trouble.

The worst part is that I don't know if they're going to pay me. Probably not. It's really annoying because I feel like their IT department is mentally challenged since this is the second thing they've screwed up.

In better news, Kat has a LOT of leads for jobs now. She's hitting it pretty hard. Within a week, a few people told her they had a connection or multiple in California for jobs. My dad, Keith, her sister's friend Diedra, etc. Diedra actually got back to her already and said that the HR person at the firm she works at (she's does accounts payable at a construction management firm) said that Kat looked like a good candidate for an Office Engineer position they have open. We have no idea what that entails. I'm assuming, since the HR guy looked at her resume and cover letter, that he knows she isn't an engineer which leads me to believe "Office Engineer" isn't really an engineering position. We don't know what it is, but Kat is pretty excited about the prospect of maybe getting to do something completely different from but still related to what she's been doing. But who knows; maybe office engineer is the name they give to their drafters. So the HR guy there is actually calling Kat sometime this weekend. It's good because this is the furthest she's gotten on any job lead.

She's also been cold contacting firms trying to get something going. We're hoping she can get an interview lined up for the end of this month.

If she does, then we'll probably drive a car out to Cali to register it. Our registration is up on both vehicles out here. But we don't want to renew because we don't want to pay twice. I checked the CA DMV's website and nowhere does it say you get a discount for having recently renewed in another state. So we're just going to risk it. Hopefully nothing bad happens.

I need to get some reading done for the book studies this week. It's been pretty hard lately to get myself to read for the Hegel study. It's just SOOOO dense. I read 4 pages and I want to put it down for a week. I'm trying to get some of these other books I started done. I'm almost there with two of them. I started reading Choke for my conference paper on Chuck Palahniuk's Diary. I figured I need to read a few more of his novels to make sure the paper is well informed. Since it's a Chuck P panel, there are going to be a lot of Chuck P fans, I'm assuming. Okay, time to get going.

Avaunt.!

Bad news:

I'm sorry but I'm afraid I must take back the offer. We are sending letters to interested parents with book selections and lesson plans for the first few weeks by Aug. 15th. The situation does not make me comfortable. I"m afraid I have to go down the list and offer the job to the next candidate.

Best wishes to your job hunting. I know it's not easy but I hope something will work out for you.

Lily

--

The situation she is referring to is that I don't live in California yet. In her original email, which is pasted two entries below this one, she says that she would like me to be there for an Aug. 22nd open house. That's it. I told her that I accepted the offer and asked when the classes were scheduled to start. She said Sept. 12 and asked when I'd be able to discuss lesson plans and books with her. She also asked whether or not I was in California yet. I asked if it would be possible to do this on when I was out for the open house and told her that we hadn't moved because Kat hasn't been able to find a job yet, but now that I had this job, we were prepared to move (me at least) whenever was necessary and that if our original move date (I told her Sept. 10) was cutting it too close to please let me know and we'd work something else out.

Then I get the email above from her this morning. I emailed back saying this behavior was highly unusual and that giving me all the dates she needed me by would've been more prudent. Oh well. I'm really really annoyed by it, but it's probably for the best since this woman seems really unstable and just bizarre. I'll have my Saturdays now (for the most part; I still may be tutoring on Saturdays.)

Speaking of tutoring, I'm again on the clock right now. And again, there are no essays for me to review. This is also really frustrating. Hopefully they can figure it out next week sometime.

Yesterday, my mom decided to stay longer up here and take me and Kat to a movie and dinner. That was really nice of her. We saw Funny People, which was good, but in standard Judd Apatow fashion, was extremely filthy. Really--bordering on Superbad filth. Not quite as bad, but bad still. I mean, the story was good, it was still funny--just a lot of penis jokes. On that note, for dinner we went to The Rustic Oven. It was delectable. The waitress told me that they had all New Belgium and O'Dell's beers on tap. I asked for an Abbey, and she was like, "Uh...we don't have that one." Then she listed off what they did have, and only listed three New Belgium beers. So I had a Fat Tire. Dumb.

So I'm getting pretty excited for these next couple of weeks. We're going to be pretty busy. Next weekend is Yellowstone. Then Mark will be out here. The weekend after he leaves, there's going to be a BBQ of some kind with people from church. The weekend after that is a going away party for us. Then Labor Day. Then we move. It's coming up fast.

I'm thinking that I need to apply for work study jobs soon. I think I might start today. Kat is working on some more painting stuff outside. I started some yardwork, but had to put it down to get on the clock. I guess I should review some other tutors' essays. Bleh.

Supposed to be working again right now. There's still a problem with my account. I hate having that feeling of, "Why do these things always happen to me!!" I talked to someone else who said he couldn't do anything to help. There aren't any IT people or administrators working on the weekend (which is kinda silly if you ask me), so because he's just a lead tutor, there isn't anything he can do. He suggested cutting two hours from today and two from tomorrow. The only thing I can do is look at other tutors' marked up essays and read the training manual. Boring. I'm kind of annoyed, because I should've had 12 hours of work, and I'm going to have at least four, possibly seven if they count yesterday (which they should.)

My mom is up here today helping Kat paint the office and do some other touch up things around the house. I'll be off shift in about 45 minutes, so I'll be able to help too.

I really need to stop going on to that Soul Pancake site. It's just so utterly frustrating. I don't know why I expected anything different. I mean, I got really frustrated the first time I started posting regularly (about three months ago), so I stopped. Then I had some really great discussions with people and thought that things would be different, but no; they're not. My problem is that people are willing to give a chance to any position except the Christian one. If I say anything in defense of Christianity (even if I'm asked to defend it!) I'm accused of proselytizing. Most of the time, I'm not even defending Christianity, but arguing that the sharp distinction between reason and faith is actually in error. Or, most recently, that Sam Harris' view of the Crucifixion as some type of ritual sacrifice akin to those of pagan tribes, ignores a fundamental truth of history--that history can be summed up in the image of a mutilated body, that of the innocent, poor, downtrodden, scum of the Earth, and that Jesus' death is the symbolic and real salvation of that body. He is that body and he saves it simultaneously. To ignore this is to buy into the myth of unstoppable human progress; that aside from a few bumps along the way, humankind is on the upswing, always has been, and has no need to be saved--science has liberated us from the notion of salvation, according to Harris. The above view is sort of a paraphrasing of Terry Eagleton says in Reason, Faith, and Revolution--sort of a quasi-Marxist view of Salvation, but I really like it. The more I read Eagleton, the more I find myself agreeing with Christianity in the context of socialism. Weird. Anyway--no one has been able to provide me with an answer to that assertion. All I get is responses like this one:

"Let me be clear, what I believe is not at issue, because it is self evident and within the natural Universe. What you believe is supernatural and not of the Universe. That is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. That, as they say, is that."

He wrote this in response to me questioning whether or not he felt Science was a totalizing explanation for everything in the universe. What he means to say, is you don't have the proof I require, and that type of proof is the only proof that exists. But hardly anyone will see it this way. Because I'm a Christian, they think I'm trying to equate atheism and religion, which I'm not. Seriously, this has become an addiction! I must be a glutton for punishment. I honestly feel like I was happier without this site.

I liked it mostly because it gives me the chance to try and articulate some things that have been brewing in my head for a while. I feel like I've done a pretty good job sometimes. At least when people are willing to read and weigh what is being said. They don't have to agree; many don't actually, but they're willing to ask questions, to bring up new points that I then have to weigh. It's the being written off like a religious fanatic that really gets me. Maybe it's really not the forum for what I'm trying to do. I can't wait till school starts.

Good news:

Hi Joel,

I have finished interviewing the other candidates. I can offer you the 7th and 8th grade Saturday writing teacher's position from 1 to 4pm on 12 Saturdays this fall semester at $30/hour. Grading and prep time will be on your own. Let me know if you accept this offer or not. If yes, we have an open house event on August 22nd which I'd like you to attend.

I hope you have already moved back to California and found a job.

Regards,

Lily Chen

--

I like her last sentence; makes me sound like a derelict. I emailed her back and accepted the offer. It's ten bucks less an hour than I asked, but I sort of expected this. I'm glad it'll be 7th and 8th grade and not younger. It should be a pretty easy job for an extra 300 bucks a month. We'll definitely need it, and this takes a little pressure off Kat to make exactly what she's making now (though not much pressure.) So I'll be having three jobs starting in the fall.

I'm actually supposed to be working for Smarthinking this weekend. I'm supposed to be on shift right now. But there are no essays. I looked through the FAQs to see what I'm supposed and it said to read parts of the training manuals I haven't looked at. That got boring really fast. But then I noticed that I was supposed to notify the people above me once I downloaded their IM client (Spark) in order to see essays in the queue. I didn't do that. So now I'm waiting to hear back from them about what they want me to do with this shift.

Kat just came back for lunch. We need to talk about how I'm getting to Cali by August 22nd.

I'm really looking forward to next weekend and the week after!!

My prediction of a slow week hasn't been entirely true. I can't believe it's already Thursday tomorrow! I need to do some reading for my book study tomorrow night.

No news on the job front. Though I suspect everyone would be thoroughly shocked if I were writing only two days after my last post that Kat had found an amazing job. Hopefully she does in the next month.

Yesterday, Kat and I had dinner with Keith and Sarah. It was fun. I told them we'd have to have them over sometime before we move. I don't know why I haven't tried to hang out with Keith more. He's a really great guy. I suppose it's because we have our own circles of friends. Besides, I don't really call people up that often (almost never, actually) to hang out.

I started doing some research for journals that I'm going to submit my thesis to for publication. I'm wondering if I should try and make any significant changes. Right before the written portion was passed, Dr. Chaves mentioned that he felt perhaps I was talking more about redemption than the sacred ("Hey, Hey Cut It Out! Feb. 17, 2009). He didn't say it was something I absolutely needed to incorporate; it was just something he thought of when he was reading it through the last time. So, I don't know. I feel like it's probably fine as it is. I'm afraid if I go to change it now, I'll screw up something huge and it'll never be ready to publish.

Anyway, I'm feeling really jittery right now. I went over to Gary's for a couple hours for some video games and one of the other guys there brought a two liter of Mountain Dew. I've really stopped drinking soda for the most part, but I had two or three glasses of it (I don't know for sure because I kept topping off the glass), and that plus intense video games has put me on edge. I need to crash.

I think I might go downstairs and play something relaxing like Star Wars KotOR.

Man, this weekend kinda got away from me. Lots to write about.

Discing on Friday was really nice. Andrew and I hit up Big City Burrito in Fort Collins, which we hadn't been to since my first summer here. I mean, I'd been to the one in Greeley a ton (almost once a week during my second semester.) When we got up there, it was a balmy 79 degrees with lots of cloud coverage. We both had a terrible game. Andrew lost a disc into this tall grassy, swampy area. He trudged around in ankle-deep mud trying to find the disc, but it was gone. As we were finishing the 18th hole, it started to rain. By the time we were getting into the car after grabbing some cookies and lemonade, it was pouring. We both agreed that the next time we go, we have to just forget about the score and enjoy the mountains. It really was glorious.

We had to stay on the north end of town for a bit because I had to meet one of my former Aims students at the FC library so she could turn in the last of her work and finish the class. I gave her an incomplete because she had become direly ill. So I'll be grading that and getting the paperwork to Aims on Wednesday. Anyway, we went to Wright Life, which is the disc golf shop in FC, so Andrew could get a new disc, then we headed over to Wild Boar for a beverage.

When we got back to my place, we started Watchmen almost immediately since the director's cut is just over three hours. It was good. Better than the theatrical version, which doesn't happen often, but there was a key scene that had been cut out that was back in for the DC and it was really well done.

Kat and I did some serious talking about the move once Andrew left. Kat said that her parents offered to have us stay with them until she found a job. Let me back up actually. So last entry I was talking about that house in Arcadia. Well, Kat and I both realized that it would be a huge gamble and probably a disastrous one if we committed to that place without her having a job yet. Because if she didn't get a job, we'd be in HUGE trouble. We actually figured out that we can't pay any rent at all anywhere (not even 10 bucks a month) if she's unemployed. So, this option at her parents' place came up. But we ran the numbers and realized that that still wouldn't really help us because we'd basically be "breaking even" every month, but actually we'd just be sinking further into debt because we'd be totally dependent on my financial aide. There was just no getting around the reality that she has to be employed full time and on a salary similar to what she makes now.

So we came up with a very difficult solution. Temporary, of course, but nonetheless difficult. The fallback, if Kat can't find employment in CA, is to become bi-statal. We were at first talking about each of us finding our own place, with the possibility of me just moving into this Arcadia house to reserve it for us when Kat is able to get work. I called my parents just to let them know that we were thinking about this as an option; mostly because we were thinking if it were to happen, then we'd have to help Kat move into her place first, which would mean an earlier move out date. My mom seemed sort of upset by it. She said she wanted to talk to my dad about it. A couple hours later, he called and asked us to come down for dinner. We were both a little worried. I thought that it could really only be because they were going to try and talk me out of going to Fuller.

This perhaps would've been an option back at the end of May. But when my summer school classes were canceled, the department chair pressured me to give him an answer about Fall classes then and there. I told him we were moving. There may have been a chance to contact him again if I had changed my mind four or five weeks ago, but it's beyond that point now. As far as I know, the CC's in Colorado have put hiring freezes on their departments. I know for sure that was true of Aims because a couple people I know couldn't even apply. But even if it wasn't true of Front Range, the end of July is far too late to be applying to teach in the fall. I'm out of a job, aside from Smarthinking. And that plus some minimum wage gig just isn't going to cut it.

But beyond that, I need to hurry up and get done with school, so I can contribute more to our income. Following this degree, I have at least another 3 or 4 years somewhere else. I'm still set on getting a PhD, but I want to get there asap, so I can get a real job finally. Postponing Fuller will just prolong that process. Right now, I have momentum built. That last year was a lot of really hard work, and I need to carry that work ethic with me into this next program. I feel like if I take too much time off (I'm already going to be out of school for close to five months) I'm going to lose that edge. I need to do as well as I possibly can at Fuller so that I can get into a decent PhD program. I'm focused.

Anyway, things were a little awkward when we first arrived. I wanted them to just get to it and bring it up so we could get it over with. Thankfully, my dad did. I explained everything to him, and he seemed to understand. He said that he would check with some contacts in CA about a job for Katrina. We definitely don't have our hopes up about it, but it's worth a shot. I went outside to help BBQ some shrimp for po' boy sandwiches, and my dad actually said that it probably wouldn't be too bad since it wouldn't be for that long. He offered to have Kat stay with them so we could save as much money as possible. I hadn't really thought of that. I could stay at Kat's parents' too, and we'd be paying virtually nothing.

So right now, the plan is to keep applying for jobs. But we're thinking that if Kat doesn't have anything lined up by the third or fourth week in August, the bi-statal option will shift to the primary spot, with the hope that she'll either find something between then and the time we move or shortly afterward. There's obviously still some more things to consider, but that's where we are right now.

Oh and we had decided yesterday to wait until later this week to give the friend of a friend of my mom's a decision about the guest house. We figured there was a chance something might come of my dad asking around. But then earlier tonight I got an email from her saying they rented the place to a woman from their church who had an immediate need and whom they felt really needed to be there. She apologized. It would've been really annoying and frustrating if we had actually been about to send her a deposit check, but since we were probably going to have to back out anyway, it wasn't a big deal. Perhaps just another sign that living at each others parents' for a couple months (hopefully less) might be the best option.

This week is going to be slow because I won't be disc golfing at all. Next weekend (Aug. 7-9), we're going to Yellowstone with Andrew and my parents. The day after we return, Mark is coming out for a whole week. Mark, we're going on the New Belgium tour, and we're taking you to Red Feather for discing.

After that it's going to be three short weeks until we move. Keep us in your prayers.

Man this week has been stressful. We finally got in contact with this friend of a friend of my mom's who has a guest house for rent in Arcadia. It's actually on Santa Anita Ave., just two houses down from my grandma and grandpa's house. Kat's mom went to look at it today. Everything looked great. The problem is that it's 1450/mo. That's doable, but just barely. We'll have to stick to an extremely tight budget and it's really only doable assuming I'm able to work at least 15 hours a week for Smarthinking and get a 20 hour a week work study job with Fuller that will give me the total amount I'm eligible for and Kat is making at least $10/hr. That will also mean that I use all of my financial aide. I was hoping that I would be able to put away some of it to pay for summer tuition. If I can't, then it'll take me two extra quarters to finish, which essentially means an extra year at Fuller. That probably won't be the end of the world, but I was hoping to just crank it out. Of course, if Kat is able to get a regular job, then we won't have to worry. I think maybe I need to start cranking out scholarship applications.

Part of me feels like we should just forget about the house and keep looking. But today, as we were looking for other options, we realized a few things. First, neither of us have real jobs in CA, so that's an area on the rental app that will be hard to fill out. Second, most of the other places we've seen are just 50-100 bucks cheaper, but smaller and apartments in mostly sketchy areas. There have been a few gems, but the prospect of getting a house for that cheap without a rental app and having a landlord that knows who I am (sort of) just seems too good to pass up. Plus, it also means we can secure a place right now and still be able to move September 11. With these other places, we'd either have to move soon, or try to time it right to find a place that will give us the move-in date we want. That's tricky when we're not in CA.

It's just super stressful because things aren't working out exactly as we had hoped. We thought Kat would have been able to find something, ANYTHING in CA, even something that didn't pay nearly as much as she gets now. But she hasn't. Most of me is leaning toward this house because it's probably the best deal we're going to get and it would solve a ton of problems for us.

Tomorrow Andrew is coming up to disc. We're going to Red Feather. I got Watchmen on Blu-ray from Netflix, so we'll probably watch that afterward. Kat hasn't seen it.

Apologies for the super long entry, but I just have to briefly mention again this conversation I've been having regarding atheism and faith. So I wrapped it up with those two guys a couple days ago, and we came to an understanding that, in my mind, was better than just agreeing to disagree. They essentially admitted that there is an element of "faith" but that that specific word connotes something too negative for them to ever use it. So we agreed that perhaps a neologism would suffice. But yesterday, this random girl who made one post near the beginning started responding to me, but not in any sort of meaningful way. It began with this in reply to me:

Supersition is made up of beliefs. People have faith that a four-leaf clover will bring them good luck just as people have faith that a god will give them luck. I believe neither, so it's easy for me to see how alike they are.

Basically, she's been conflating superstitions and belief in things like Santa Claus with belief in God. And she won't let it go. She thinks faith can only imply faith in God. It's gotten pretty outrageous. And kinda funny, I guess.

Back to watching Sliders!

Haven't written on a Monday in a loooooooooong time. Andrew is on his way up for some disc golf.

So I started posting on SoulPancake.com again. I just couldn't stay away. I mean, I stayed away for about six weeks, then I started posting. I actually found some people to have stimulating conversation with. It's pretty interesting reading people's views on God. It lets me know sort of what I'm up against so to speak. Not that I'm looking for a fight with my scholarship, but it's interesting to hear how atheists, intelligent, non-dogmatic ones, conceive of their "beliefs." (Though some contend that they're not beliefs at all.) I won't get into it all here. You can read the full discussion here.

Sounds like someone is here. It's Andrew. Time to go! We need lunch.

Kat and I were finally able to celebrate a little Friday and yesterday. Friday, we went and saw the new Harry Potter (as I mentioned in my last post.) I'll write a little something below. Skip ahead if you haven't seen it and are planning to:


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I had a feeling that as they made more films, it would become more and more difficult to still capture the same mystery and magic that the first two or three did. In fact, with the third and fourth, even though I hadn't read the books at that time, I felt like they were a bit rushed. It wasn't until I read the books that I saw why. The fifth was actually improved for me by the book. For me, that was probably the best film following the first and second films.

The sixth film, however, was not very good compared to the other films, as a stand alone film. I think that people will find, once all the films have been released, that it really functioned more as a bridge between the fifth and seventh films. The book doesn't serve that function of course.

The film spends an exorbitant amount of time developing the love relationships between the characters. This is actually an important part of the book, but I felt like diving more into the stuff about Voldemort's past would be even more important. Granted, character development is necessary, but I think they could've cut it down a bit to make room for other stuff.

The other big problem was the lack of focus in the film. In previous films, the focus on the importance of the title was huge and has driven each film (as it drive the central plot of each novel.) But there was rarely any mention of The Half-Blood Prince. There are literally four scenes concerning the potion book. It's not a part of the central plot at all. In the book it's perhaps less central than in the other books, but still, it's really just an afterthought in the film.

The film covers the major plot points: Dumbledore's death at the hands of Snape, Harry's discovery of Voldemort's use of Horcruxes, and the relationship stuff. But other things like learning to apparate, Harry noticing The Diadem of Ravenclaw in the Room of Requirement (which he doesn't realize until the seventh book), learning the history of Voldemort's family, etc., are completely absent from the film. And it was 2 1/2 hours. That, of course, is the difficulty in turning a 600+ page book into a feature film, but the fifth was the longest book, and I felt that that film was better than the third or fourth. It's a good thing the seventh book will be made into two films.

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Yesterday, we ran some errands and then had dinner at The Rustic Oven. It wasn't cheap, but it was delicious. It'd been a while since we'd had a dinner like that. We bought some Space Cubes at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. We started packing up all of our winter clothes using some Space Bags my parents gave us. In the cubes, we put sleeping bags, comforters, pillows, blankets, etc. We've only used three of the seven, and most of that stuff is packed. Those things are amazing.

As usual, I don't know what we're doing the rest of the day. We're planning on doing a driving test with the cats to try and get them used to the car. We did it last weekend, and it didn't go to well. Rumfoord sort of freaked out. Hopefully he'll do better this time.

I'm at Wild Boar right now with Josh. We were working on out Hegel study, but we're taking a break. We may not get back to it today. It's really hard just to get through 10 pages. My brain hurts.

In couple hours, however, Kat and I will be watching the new Harry Potter movie. I'm excited. The sixth book was one of my favorites. We're gonna be sort of celebrating our anniversary all weekend.

Yesterday, we all (Andrew, Mom, Dad, and Kat) went to The Garden of the Gods and then drove to the top of Pikes Peak. Both were enjoyable. I got a lot of bug bites though. Can't wait to get to Cali where there are hardly any mosquitoes (compared to here anyway.) We capped off the day with dinner at 3 Margaritas after dropping Andrew off at CCU (Colorado Christian University) where he's playing in a worship band for a summer camp this week. After that, Kat and I went to Wal-Mart and treated ourselves to a pair of new iPod Shuffles. Mine is silver; Kat's is green. We decided that we need to start exercising, and that'll be easier if we have a Shuffle to listen to while we're running or whatever. Ridiculous, I know. But it was our anniversary present to ourselves.

So that brings us back to today. Kat is getting some work done while I'm up here. I'm about to head back soon. I wonder what we'll do for dinner. We're going out for dinner tomorrow.

Back to reading.!

Happy Anniversary! Three years. And I won't see Kat at all today. Bummer.

Paul, Kaitlyn, Mom, and Andrew are on their way up here. I'm hoping. I drove up to New Belgium this morning to get the tickets. I was a little nervous that there would be a lot of people there already. I just never know what to expect. But there was literally no one there. No one but the people who worked there anyway. The girl who gave me the tickets was like, "Aww, don't you want to go on the one o'clock tour? That's my tour!" But I recognized her as the girl who gave me and Justin sort of a half-assed tour when I took him, so I told her that I'd already been on her tour. She seemed content with that answer. Besides, we wouldn't have time to do the one o'clock tour and have lunch and beer tasting before hand.

I feel like writing some more stuff. Steve sent me a Facebook message last night that really got me thinking about church things and how I've been thinking about working in ministry for a bit. But there's no time to write about it now! There's some last minute cleaning to be done.

Then possibly some video games.!

Bleh. I don't know how else to begin this entry. Tomorrow is my 3 year anniversary, but Kat has to be at work at 6:30am to go to CO Springs with a coworker for a project. Paul, Kaitlyn (correct spelling this time), Andrew, and my mom are coming up tomorrow to go on the New Belgium tour. Then I'm going down to Louisville with them to hangout and spend the night. I know, lame. Kat is coming down Thursday morning, Paul and Kaitlyn are heading out to the next stop of their moving tour across the country, and the rest of us are going to Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak. It was funny because Kat and I both decided that the plan was going to be for me to stay down there Wednesday night, and about 5 hours later, I realized that was our anniversary. Both of us had forgotten. But Kat said not to worry about it. We'll celebrate this weekend.

So I was just poking around Facebook, looking at some profiles of people I know from school (UNC) when I realized that I had been cut from the circle. That's always a disheartening feeling. I mean, I'm not that broken up about it, but still--that kind of thing always stings even if just a little. As many of you know, I had been carpooling with these two girls for the entire two years of the program. I had had the opportunity, on occasion, to hang out with their husbands; the three of us got together a few times with our spouses (Kat and I had them over all three times; perhaps a sign), we watched Sarah and Keith's cats twice, etc. I thought that we were all casual friends. On our car rides we always talked like we were. The three of us kept saying how we needed to get together a few times this summer with our spouses again to hang out especially before I moved. I hadn't heard from Amber at all all summer. Not since the BBQ I had here at the end of the semester. The last time I saw Sarah was when she came to get her cats. I knew both of them were busy because Amber and Ian were moving to Denver (or somewhere around there) and Sarah and Keith just moved into a new place too. So I didn't really think anything of it. I decided to just take a glance at Sarah's page to see what she'd been up to so far this summer. New job. Traveling. All good things. And then I saw a long dialogue between her and Amber talking about getting together just last week. And then the week before. And not just them; with their husbands as well. Look, I understand; they're two girls and I'm a guy, so naturally they're going to be closer with each other than me, but still. If they're going to make plans for the four of them to hang out, why couldn't they include me and Kat? Especially since Sarah feels we're good enough friends to have us watch their cat.

Ultimately though, I couldn't really see Katrina and I being really good friends with Sarah and Keith. Keith is a super good guy, and I like him a lot. He and I played disc golf a couple times last summer, and it was really cool. I always enjoy talking to him. But Kat doesn't really have anything in common with Sarah because, unlike me, Sarah isn't really able to get out of "academic mode" too easily. And there's that pesky academic tension between me and Sarah. I've written about that a couple times (11.29.2007, "He Brings Us Peace, He Brings Us Joy, He Brings All Thoughts To Destroy" and 9.11.2008 "We Give It Our All So We Don't Know Why We Can't Slow It Down. It's Way Too Fast".) It's been this really awkward thing between us since that first confrontation. Whenever it was just me and her carpooling, I never really like to talk about school stuff because I didn't want to feel that. But sometimes it was unavoidable. I don't think I ever mentioned the panel that we were both a part of at the 5 C's conference at Aims in April 2008. Basically, what happened was Dr. Varner sent an email out explaining that he sponsors a student panel every year at this conference and wanted to know who was interested. The six of us who ended up doing it all responded the same day, but Sarah just happened to do it a little earlier than everyone else, so she was put in charge. The idea for the panel, however, was a collaboration. In fact, the meat of the presentation was a lesson of mine based on a YouTube video that Dave showed me two summers ago. Everything else was sort of formed around that. Then, to everyone's surprise (including Sarah's) she alone wins the award for outstanding graduate student contribution which included a $200 check. This was because since she had emailed Varner first, she was in charge and she was the one in contact with the conference person. At the time, I actually didn't really care. But it started to get to me because everyone else on the panel kept coming by my office to complain about what a load of crap it was, but they didn't feel right confronting her because they had just been along for the ride in the first place, so they thought I should do it since I had the most ground to stand on based on what I contributed. I never did though. What would I have said? It's not like she nominated herself. Besides, I could tell she was a little embarrassed. The right thing to do would've been for her to at least offer to split the money up between us all. Everyone would have of course refused, and rightfully so, but it would've been a nice gesture.

This award came back to bite me again at graduation. Two weeks before, everyone got an email with the announcement of all the grad student honors, and Sarah was named outstanding English student. Sure, I was a little jealous because I felt I had stronger scholarship, but she had a 4.0, and I didn't, so naturally, I couldn't be that annoyed by it. But at graduation, I learned it wasn't because of her GPA. Dr. Varner, the only English faculty to do this, had nominated Sarah for the award because of the award she won at 5 C's. She knew this the whole time. She didn't tell anyone, at least to my knowledge, that Varner had nominated her or why. She finally told us he did as we were all sitting on the gym floor at the graduation ceremony. I still thought it was because he was her thesis adviser and she had a 4.0. But when her name was called, the announcer continued to explain that it was her teaching excellence and innovative lessons that earned her not only this honor but a similar honor at a Colorado teaching conference. I absolutely could not believe it. This time she knew about it. She knew, and she still let it happen. I'm not saying the award should've been mine. There was another panelist from our presentation graduating as well. She contributed just as much as Sarah did, maybe slightly more actually. But Sarah emailed Dr. Varner first. That's why she won both awards. Sarah was certainly a decent teacher, but she was by no means better than any of the rest of us who were also graduating.

She avoided me after the ceremony. And it wasn't my imagination. I tried to congratulate her, but she very awkwardly turned away like she was looking for someone else. I found my parents, Andrew, Kat, my office mates, Kyle and Josh. And then I saw Keith. He came right up to me, shook my hand, congratulated me. I could see Sarah talking to her parents and Keith's mom, looking over at us trying to get Keith's attention. She finally did, and Keith went over to her. That seemed odd too because normally she would've had no problem walking right up. I didn't talk to her at all until almost a month later when she called to ask if we would watch their cats.

Man, I sound like a competitive jerk. I suppose it's because I felt like I worked so hard to get approval from the faculty, and Sarah seemed to earn it so effortlessly for the most part. And in the end, she came away with all the accolades. I had honestly let it go (or thought I had) until I saw that Amber and Sarah were making plans without me. It probably (definitely is more likely) has nothing to do with anything I just mentioned. I told myself that it was gender-related. But then that just seemed kind of dumb. It's not like it was just going to be the three of us hanging out. If it was just the two of them making plans, then fine. I don't want to be there anyway. But--I should just stop talking about this. It's dumb, it doesn't matter, clearly those friendships weren't that important, so it's time to let all of this go.

Let it go, and forgive.

I'm the one going on to more school. I'm the one who'll be creating the opportunities for academic publication. I'm the one who'll eventually be getting a PhD.

There. I don't need to worry about this anymore. It's over. I'm sorry that all sounded so immature. I don't even want to go back and read it because I'll probably just erase it all. Sometimes these things just need to be said though.

In other exciting news, I got two new books to start reading: Terry Eagleton and Peter Rollins

I just need to finish some of these other ones so I can get started!!

Reading.!

We started packing today. Packed up all the books I won't be needing (which was most of them.) It took about twelve boxes. Now Kat is working on packing up the dishes we won't be needing for a while.

We've been watching some old TV on Netflix through the Xbox. Right now we're watching Sliders. It's amazing to me how unsophisticated serial television was just 15 years ago. Not that Lost, 24, etc. are super sophisticated in terms of their subject, but at least each episode follows the previous one very closely. These episodes are weird. Sometimes, the story lines just cut off, some are out of order, sometimes a character will travel with the main characters but then for some ridiculous reason (like, "He just ran off!") the character disappears. Once you know what the main premise is, it doesn't matter which order you watch the episodes in. You don't see dramas produced like that anymore. Even a show like CSI where for the most part each episode can stand alone, you still have continued, larger story lines throughout each season.

Anyway, now I gotta run get more bubble wrap for Kat.

Pop.!

Eating breakfast and writing. Kat is on the elliptical right now. Couldn't sleep again last night. I don't know what's going on. I got up before 8:30 though, so hopefully I'll be able to get to bed earlier tonight.

So a few months ago I posted links to the six PhD programs I was considering. On Wednesday at my Hegel study, Josh suggested that I just consider some theology programs. We got to talking about our research interests and he said that it sounds like I've moved away from literature toward theology. I had actually started to look up some programs to broaden my options, but got bogged down on gradschools.com by all the tiny bible colleges. Not that I was looking at every single school, but it was just much more overwhelming than looking at English programs, mostly because I know which English programs are good already. But I buckled down and started looking. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought. The difficulty now is that I have 27 programs bookmarked, which includes the six I had originally. That is a little much realistically. I need to narrow it down, obviously, since each application is between 70 and 100 bucks. And I did actually look at many more than the 21 that I added. Here's the new list with fields of study:

Fuller Theological Seminary - PhD in Theology
Graduate Theological Union - PhD in Ethics and Social Theory
Chicago Theological Seminary - PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Human Sciences
Dallas Theological Seminary - PhD in Theology
University of Virginia - PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Culture, Religion and Culture emphasis
Princeton Theological Seminary - PhD in Theology, Religion and Society emphasis
Boston University - PhD in Religion and Society
Harvard Divinity School - ThD Program
Claremont Graduate University - PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Culture
Divinity School at the University of Chicago - PhD in Religion and Literature, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Ethics, or Theology
Marquette University - PhD in Theology and Society
Wheaton Graduate School - PhD in Biblical and Theological Studies
Trinity College, Dublin - PhD in Texts, Contexts, and Cultures
UC Santa Cruz - PhD in The History of Consciousness
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities - PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society
Stanford University - PhD in Modern Thought and Literature
UC Berkeley - PhD in Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory
Purdue University - PhD in Philosophy and Literature
SUNY Buffalo - PhD in English
University of Cambridge - MPhil in Theological and Religious Studies, PhD in Theological and Religious Studies
University of Oxford - MPhil in Theology or MTh in Applied Theology
Duke Divinity School - ThD Program
Duke University - PhD in Religion and Modernity
Brown University - PhD in Religion and Critical Thought
Yale University - PhD in Religious Studies, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Ethics, or Theology emphasis
Columbia University - PhD in Philosophy of Religion
UC Santa Barbara - PhD in Religious Studies, Christian Traditions emphasis

These aren't in order of preference. I still need to figure that out. Obviously the programs I'm most interested in are the more interdisciplinary ones. But even the standard theology or English programs offer tracks or courses that will probably work for what I want to do. Though as I posted these, I looked again, briefly, at each program, and there probably are a few that I could cut. It's just too hard right now because I haven't started at Fuller yet. I'm sure after my first two or three quarters, I'll have a much better idea of what I want to do. Some of these programs also require either an MDiv or ThM degree or an MA with a biblical and theological studies emphasis. Originally, I was planning on just doing the theological studies emphasis. I may have to change my plan and either do another year and a ThM, which would require I do the biblical and theological studies emphasis. I guess that wouldn't be so bad. I'm going to need to talk to an adviser.

I don't know what we're doing today. Kat and I finally set a date for our move: September 11. We decided we're moving by PODS. They're dropping off a 16 foot unit on the 9th. That way we can just drive straight there in one day. If we had rented a truck, we were planning on stopping. The initial fee for the truck was cheaper, but after gas, hotel, and hassle, they're about the same cost. Kat made an Excel spreadsheet calendar so we can list everything we need to do. We have a couple more weeks of planning than we did last time, which we'll need. Not that it felt rushed last time, but it's always nice to have a little extra time. I don't know how we're going to find a place. I guess we'll have to discuss that.

Onward.!

I was about to write last night, but decided against it. I'm the only one I know now who updates this thing with any regularity. Mark, what happened????

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Okay, so now it's about an hour later. Let me explain.

You know how my entry titles are usually pulled from song lyrics of something I'm listening to currently? Okay, well I went to a lyrics site, as usual, to remember exactly what it was I wanted to put as the title, and I saw all these banners for this thing called Power Chord Academy. Yes, that's right it is exactly what it sounds like--a place to learn how to be in a band. I thought to myself, "Wow, that sounds ridiculous, I wonder what this thing is and what they really offer people." So I went to the site to see what the deal was. Basically, they offer rock n' roll summer camps all around the country. I chuckled to myself, and then I saw the "Employment" tab. I thought, "No... Is this something I would really want to do?" I looked all over the site and checked everything out, and ultimately it's really not that lame I guess. It's a camp for kids age 12-18. They have to already know some instrument at some level, they get grouped together to form "bands", they write songs, get to record one (or a few depending on which package they do), and they make a music video. They also get to meet a touring band (didn't say who) and go to a concert. So they need people to be counselors who have experience in a band working in the industry. After brief deliberation, I decided to apply because they have one beginning at the end of the month at CU. I figure that they probably don't get too many people who are actual working professionals (like guys who are currently in touring bands) giving up a week of their summer to do this, and since I've been on tour, booked shows, recorded in a studio, etc., I guess I'm qualified enough. So we'll see what happens. I had to come up with a regular resume to send them. It wasn't easy. I feel like it's sort of lacking. But still, I guess it would be cool to make a little extra money for a weeks worth of jamming with some high schoolers.

Anyway, now I'm far behind on chores. I hope I'm able to get some actual work once I'm finished with my online tutor training. It's been slow going the last few weeks.

By the way, I also read this before I started that job app:

"Brand New's new album is called 'Daisy' and will be released on September 22nd, 2009. Stay tuned for more info."

That's from their site. Very exciting. Who's up for seeing them when they head out on tour to support it in the fall?

Down in Louisville today. Andrew and I drove out to Aurora to try a new disc golf course. It was kinda bland. I finished at 1 under and probably could've been 5 or 6 under honestly. Andrew was even but could've done much better as well. It was just wide open and some of the holes were kinda short. Still, I lost my Valkyrie to a goose pond--very similar to the pond at the La Mirada course. I could see it sticking into the silt about six feet from the shore. I could've easily stepped down into it and was actually considering it until a guy who was playing through said, "I been in that lake. You don't want to go in there." So I took his word for it.

After that, Andrew looked up some places to grab a burger, and we decided on a place called Hamburger Stand, which we discovered is really just Wienerschnitzel with more burger options. There was also a Tastee Freez inside.

Now we're back and feeling very lethargic. I think Andrew is going to teach me how to drive stick. I think he'll be a good teacher because all the little nuances he had to learn are still fresh in his mind. The last person who tried to teach me was basically just like, "Uh, you just...do it." So that should be fun.

Next week, Paul and Caitlyn (I don't think that's how she spells it) will be passing through on their way to their new apartment in Manhattan. I'm going to see if they want to go on the New Belgium tour. I'm sure when I say "Free beer!" Paul will want to go.

I hope my Internet works when I get home tonight. It better.