Church Happenings

My church is doing about a 5 week series or so about sex. I haven't been to any of the services since we started, but I checked up on the church's website and saw this. Is it sad that my only response was to go and eat an apple?

I went to Austin Stone Church last weekend for the first time, which is what I assume is Austin's closest thing to A&M's Breakaway Ministries. The church has to be huge. There are four services and though I''m fairly certain that the majority of college students does in fact attend the 7 pm service, it was still overwhelming to see so many students gathered in Austin for worship. There were probably 400, and possibly 500 there. I arrived 10 minutes late to Austin High School and found the gymnasium already packed, and practically had to sit on the back row, which I did. I like the church and may try to get involved. For now, it's just my temporary church when Echo is out talking about intercourse.

And I'm just remembering now that I was originally going to start writing this silly blog to help organize my thoughts and questions about scriptures. I may start doing that again. We're now reading the Bhagavad Gita, which really could be read entirely in about 2 hours.

I just realized something

If I were to move to Hawaii, the jet lag would propel my sleep schedule into normality.

I have a strange obsession with dreams

I guess I can post this (for the sake of posting something), but I wouldn't recommend the reading unless you're extremely bored.

This is a dream I had –recorded immediately upon waking…as will probably be quickly apparent. I haven’t read it thoroughly, and the dream only comes to me in flashes now, but it will no doubt be a lasting memory. It’s one of the saddest, strangest and most beautiful dreams I’ve ever had all at once, a special state that seems only achievable in the world of dreaming sometimes. Another strange part of the story is the fact that I dreamed this the night after dreaming one of the most horrifying dreams I’ve ever had, involving me acting as a forced accomplice to many many murders. I had decided to start recording my dreams again (I started doing so as a self-psychology experiment my junior year and then stopped after about a year) a few days before, but was much too terrified throughout the day to write down the details that I wanted so badly to forget. I still tremble a bit when I think about it, but the details are almost all gone thankfully. All that aside, this dream intrigues me even more because I woke up and wrote the whole of the dream out without hardly being conscious of it. All of a sudden there existed a page-and-a-half long Word Document about what was still sloshing around in my thoughts, without knowing how it got there. It consists of the content of the dream, as well as some of my own unconscious mental notes, which are apparently possible. So I suppose that means it was of particular interest or importance to me, and also means that if this is read, sorry for whatever this nonsense is and says. Feel free to employ your own psychoanalysis.

Tuesday night: November 4, 2008:

I had driven back to Houston and brought my mom and Nathan back with me for a little while, because Nathan had some spare time and wanted to come. When I got back, we found this little place with, well it was sort of like a mall I guess, but there was a train ride at the front, so we all decided to ride it. We did, it went once around, and when I got off, Nathan and my mom were gone. I started seriously doubting whether they had even come back to Austin with me. I knew I had found this mall place on Guadalupe, but I suddenly wasn't sure if they were there with me, and then I was also worried about my backpack being missing. I went outside and looked around. They weren't there and neither was my backpack in my car. I jogged back inside, and asked the train conductor allow me to search the carts again just to verify that it wasn't there and I may have just missed it or someone had taken it by mistake and placed it back. I didn't find it, but did find a backpack that was the same type as mine, just covered in dirt and more used. I opened it up, noticing that no one was around, and found my blue folder. I sorted through the papers and it was certainly mine, and I went back to put it in the backpack again and get out of there, when I realized that there was another blue folder in my backpack. I had placed some new papers in my blue folder and suddenly wondered if I had put them in the right one. (as I’m typing this out I’m realizing that it corresponds with questioning whether I’m making the right decisions)> But after this little second confusing dilemma, I noticed that my roommate was at a small little table eating just a few feet behind where I was sitting in one of the mini- train coaster compartments. I greeted him as if he'd always been there, but was still surprised I think in some way. I started talking to him, maintaining my seat, when all of a sudden my mom and Nathan came back again and were asking everyone if they had any green Snapple sprites (my mom was the one asking) for my son. There wasn't a lot of response, but then again there weren't a lot of people in there. In fact, I distinctly remember the lights being off when I first reentered the train area. But there were some people eating together and alone, and so I went and sat down with Fenton, Nathan, and my mom. I don’t remember if I ate anything. Eventually, I stood to go, and my mom and Nathan had left again. I told Fenton I would see him later, and walked down from our risen position, about 5 feet up from the ground, and walked down over seats, as if in a movie theatre down until I stepped over a small redheaded girl, almost stepping on her actually. You still want that green Snapple sprite she asked with a tremendous grin on her face. I had glanced at her first and seen her as only a child, but I recognized quite clearly that she was a college student, or at the very least a high school senior. She had a bottle cap of some sort in between her fingers I believe. I was surprised, both from realizing that she was there, recalled a question from long before and held an affirmative response, and her transformation to beauty and maturity. She wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world, and based on what I know of dream theory, was probably even someone I know (she seemed a lot like that aerospace engineering girl, but shorter and with red hair - I believe I made this connection in my dream too). After a moment's pause, still standing awkwardly over her at varying heights, one foot on the ground in front of her and the other on a seat next to her, I decided to well basically lie, but be polite and excited. That would be wonderful. Absolutely. She smiled at me hugely again, as if a child's smile. I expected her to brandish a bottle of whatever Snapple green sprite is, but instead she just talked to me as if we knew each other. She laughed at everything I would say, whether a knowing laugh, or just an “oh, that Kyle is so funny” laugh. (Dream me must be extremely vain). She was extremely interesting though. We talked about I don't even know what. Dialogue always seems lost in dreaming, and only emotion remains in highly emotive dreams such as this one. Finally she told me that we'd better go, and so I stood up, with my backpack now miraculously and we walked out together. An older woman greeted me after I hadn't taken 10 steps with an extremely excited hey, as if old friends were meeting. She had her arms outstretched for a hug, and obliging, received the old friend’s meeting embrace. We exchanged pleasantries, mainly just her, and myself confused, but I gathered that it was the girl's mother. We walked on finally to the room with the exit doors, and I was again stopped, this time by, clearly her father, and two men behind a table covered by a cheap white sheet a large child might have for a ghastly Halloween costume. This is where the dream of course gets stranger. There is a sense of urgency about her father and he explains that there are some problems. Ok... I don't know what he's talking about, but I better sit down with these important looking two (and later three) gentlemen. They are behind a simple table with nothing else and speaking to me about how arrangements can't be made as planned. I still don't know what on earth is happening, but somehow recall that Fenton and I, remembering him pictured out at the table still, had decided to go on a ski trip together to Colorado. Apparently that is what all this is about. The two speak with a terrible technical jargon though that makes absolutely no sense to me. At first I pretend like I know what is going on, primarily to please the redhead (I'll call her RH for the rest of it). Finally though, I give up the expression of understanding for one of bewildered confusion, and ask "What? So how does this apply to me?" RH and her father giggle and I am reassured. I look over at RH and see that same wide smile again, and turn around to see that there are now three men behind the table, and a whole load of networked computers and electrical boards. They're conferring amongst themselves, and I am awaiting an answer. Instead of receiving the expected reply, they tell RH's father to explain it to me. Apparently, there is a problem with who I am going with, because I had decided? that I wanted to go with RH and her family instead of Fenton. Our reservation was under Fenton's name though, so I could not be transferred and I guess Fenton didn't want to change to the other location as well. It even involve moving to some other state. I was suddenly set on the change though, and told them explicitly that these were the people I was going with and it was unfair to tie me down. Argument sprung up, and I spoke very little. To my surprise, RH did most of the talking, speaking on my behalf with extreme intelligence, far outmatching my own. Eventually she had them backed into a corner logically and it seemed we had won. They still refused. RH's father lost it and appealed to their senses of patriotism and our founding fathers. He recalled statements of the men at our early conventions and I was deeply moved. He stormed out of the room and I followed him. We talked for a few brief moments, and he told me I ought to go back in there. I walk into the "room" to find that it is now an outdoor location. The two men again now remain seated behind their desk, but are now before RH, with her face painted in what seems to look to me now like Geisha facepaint. She was speaking in French, and somehow everyone knew it pertained to the Constitutional Convention and establishing what was fair and just. Strange yeah, but completely moving and I was so grateful I knew someone who would go so far for what was right, and also to be with me. Others began to gather around the display and eventually it began to seem more like a protest, but I woke up. I fell in love in a dream, and found the waking world with nothing.

School is too hard

Music Extra Credit Assignment: Watch the movie Amadeus...
Hosanna in the highest!

WHAT ABOUT US!?

Has anyone seen the music video for Michael Jackson's Earth Song before? I tried to post it, but it didn't work. I encourage an immediate viewing of it if you're bored. My roommate had to find a "song about the environment" and chose dear old MJ. It's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and makes me love Michael even more deeply. This video makes me want to edit overdramatically again as well.