I'm glad to have clarified a few things with one of my friends.  She felt used by me because I really only seriously talked to her regarding Kelly (first for help deciding whether I should go out with her, and secondly to help get over her).  Now I think we have gotten off on the right foot as friends as I am starting to let go of talking about Kelly so I can start to live my own life and build my own friendships independent of her.  It feels freeing.  It really made my day today, in addition to doing an awesome lab presentation, and going apple-picking at an orchard, drinking apple cider, eating apple donuts, and in general acting like a little kid and playing on the swings + going to the petting zoo that was at the orchard.

Another step to making memories that are my own, and being the Dan that I aspire to be.

Life is so real to me now.  I more present than I ever have, so in the moment, not aloof of off on Cloud 9.  I saw this beautiful butterfly today that almost landed on me, and it reminded me of a time I was at 6 Flags Great America waiting in line for the Viper, and a butterfly landed right over my heart and sprung off and flew away into the distance.  I am learning to enjoy just the everyday things of life: the smell and feel of clean clothes and the fulfillment of a self-cooked meal shared with friends, a morning run before the world wakes up...  I no longer think I need to have all these epic adventures all the time to keep my sanity and my identity.  Life consists of these small moments that take up most of our time, so why not start appreciating them as more than just a necessary waste of time?

Out of nowhere I just vomited tonight.  I was about to go for a run to try to get my mind off of the agony, but before I even took off I threw up because of the extreme crushing feeling in my core.  Today was miserable.  

Never has the regret hit me this bad until now.  I guess it's been piling up, saving itself for just the time when I seem to be doing alright with everything else.  What the hell were you thinking Dan?  I know exactly what you were thinking... and it will never befall you again.  Never again will I let my runaround emotional thoughts dominate my life and alter my view of those I love.  Never will I put my emotions above the well-being of another dearest friend.  I've learned my lessons, and far more than those mentioned here.  Never will I ever think that she is unattractive again, far from it.  I know my preferences, and more importantly, I know the difference between my preferences and my standards and how to treat each one as separate from the other.  

 My friends keep telling me that things will get better, but they do not know the future.  They know statistics, that things are likely to get better, which is some comfort.  But I also know that sometimes it can take almost decade or longer (as it did with both of my parents, meaning that they were married to each other for several years before they got over their other relationships) to truly "get over" (what does this even mean anymore?) someone.  I'm so confused... is she trying to "get over" simply the old relationship and friendship, get over me as a person, get over just the hurt that I gave to her...   what is going on here...

I finally deleted her cell phone number out of my contacts list, just so I have one less temptation, because it's been getting a lot worse lately.  Just seeing her pictures makes me jealous that she is seeming to be able to enjoy her life while I'm trapped in this torture chamber.  If she's doing so well, then what is she waiting for?  I don't know anything of what's going on... I wish I did... I wish I at least knew that she knew what has to happen...

Writing is the only tangible, earthly outlet that is keeping me sane through all this.  At least it gives me something to track my progress.  For now, I'm dozing off at the keyboard.  Not much sleep these last few days.  

How to Fall Out of Love, Part I, Thought-Stopping

I got this book from a recommendation from a psychologist's lecture series I was listening to.  The book is called How to Fall Out of Love, and it's a nice, short, practical read.  I haven't finished it yet, because unlike the last book I read, I want to go through the step-by-step process of releases before reading the book through.  This was the first release:

Make a list.  Make a list of the best, most positive scenes and pleasures you can think of that do not involve that person... "an emotion can only be controlled or destroyed by another emotion contrary thereto, and with more power for controlling emotion."  Therefore, make a list of scenes, places, events and/or feelings that are wholly pleasurable to you, but do not involve the person you need to stop thinking about.  Your list is entirely your own.

((The list need not be memories or feelings that you have yet experienced, but I'm choosing to make them such, because then they will be more material and easier to focus on)).

1. Swinging a hammer into a nail while balancing on the top step of a ladder that only has 3 of its feet on level ground while trying not to fall down.
2. Executing a perfect low spin-kick and feeling the micro-shockwave from the sharp energy transfer from my core muscles, down through my quadriceps, calves, through my heel, and into the pine to shatter it in two, the entire world whirling around while I still maintain a pin-point focus on my target.
3. Rollerblading down a parking tower late at night, balancing, trying to keep from wiping-out.  Speed.  Agility.  
4. Staying up late til 2 AM sketching and drawing out the template for my first stained glass project, and having it turn out exactly the way that I wanted it to.  The excitement of success in an area I usually fail at, and moving past that failure and my own self-doubt to create a model for something that will be beautiful.
5. Grilling for my first time by myself.  Finding my own firewood, building a little 'house' out of the charcoal and tinder, the *clink* of my first Zippo, lighting the fuse, and watching the coals ignite into flames, and then squirting lighter fluid directly onto the fire.  The smell of seared steak followed up with garlic bread right off the grill.
6. Playing StarCraft via LAN while at the launch party, waiting in excitement for the release of StarCraft II.  Watching the play-by-plays of some of the best SC players in the world go head-to-head, like watching a sports game, but actually interesting and engaging. 
7. Headbanging, rockfisting, air-guitaring, and shredding my vocal-cords out while at the Iron Maiden show.
8. Peering through the laser-dot scope of an AR-15 and feeling the recoil of an AR-15 up against my shoulder after hitting my target dead-on.
9. The suspense and adrenaline-pumping rush of playing capture the flag, stalking my opponents, searching the darkness for the flag, running as fast as my mind would let me over ground I could not distinguish in the shadow, and the thrill of escaping capture.
10. Buying an awesome spring-assisted pocket knife (one that is better than the one I have, and one that I would even want for myself) as a gift for my friend, and the unquestionably genuine appreciation that she felt for it afterwards.  Another skill that I was terrible at before that I am now learning to master, the art of gift-giving.  Failure into success.

We'll stop here for now.  I really want to make more memories and reach more dreams so I can put them on this list, because it is too short for my standards.

Please, God, stop these dreams from driving me to insanity.  Every morning, waking up from a non-existent world that flaunts its non-existence at me, where there is no longer a wall separating me from her, waking up into a cold, silent oblivion.  It really sucks to start one's day like this, every day for the past over a week, and to have no control over the dream whatsoever... just to be left with its sweet taste left upon waking only to turn to wormwood in realization that it was an empty dream.  When will the dream become a reality... I don't even know what has to happen before that... I don't know how long I have to wait... I just know enough to get me to the next foothold (sometimes).

I'm trying to make new friends, and I have, and I'm getting better at it too... but it will be a long time before any of these new fledgling friendships mature into something that will last any longer than maybe a few years after college.  There's just not as much depth... not as much commonality, at least not in things that matter or that I ever care about a lot.  I am squeezed into the realm casual friendships of convenience, which I guess is how most of them start, but it is a state of transition that is excruciating for me to bear without the balance of the deep-set friendships from before... anyway... I'll be with at least three of my older, wiser, more mature, and longer-held friends soon enough I guess... whether that will be enough, I guess it's up to me to decide.

;.(...  I guess I'm just tired right now after only getting four hours of sleep after a StarCraft II launch party.  I got to spend time with all my Kuk Sool friends... It was fun, and nerdy, and I guess epic... but it's not what I want.  It's what I get, and I'll make do with that and enjoy it for what it is and for where I'm at... but at the end of the night I'm still left with the cold emptiness I started with.

I feel forgotten... I guess I know that's probably not the case... it's just how I feel... My golden birthday is coming up... I'm trying to plan all these wonderful things either for it, or just to learn how to plan something I really want to do... but I don't think I'll get what I most want for the birthday that marks the end of my label as a "teenager."  I'm not even sure if anyone is planning anything for it or not.  I helped surprise my friend down here on her birthday for months in advance, with several celebrations of her actual birthday before it even happened.  I guess it's not that important... just a cultural significance attached to a day... but I'm curious what would happen if I didn't plan anything for myself for this day...

It's time to go to work, but I don't know if I'll be able to pull myself up today.  I know I'll have to.  Guess it will be one of my days of silence.  No one is terribly curious at my work to get to know each other that well, so they probably won't notice too much.

God... sorry but you'll have to carry me through today, because I can't walk another step until this maddening lonely emptiness subsides.  Please... jdap jdow ;s ,d ial nd yogdlh; auagleee kjakq; app g ,alk yso mt ngokjhate Rpda;de

White Noise

(also an old draft that never got posted)

This is the only thing I can think of that would be constructive in focusing my mind currently.

Laura is busy on a spring break trip, potentially exhausted from her day of working to serve others. Rob I believe is in class until about midnight. My lady is in the Tartan land until tomorrow night, and I miss her sorely.

I am in a colloidal state where all my emotions are tossing themselves about in chaotic motion that refuses to settle upon either one direction or another. I feel like an idiot right now, unable to comprehend or remember some crucial details right now. Did I turn in that homework assignment two weeks ago? I found the answer sheet for it crumpled in with other papers, unfilled. I don't remember doing the assignment at all... but how could it have slipped my mind to turn in a prelab?! Of course the grades for the paper lab are not posted online, and I want to blame the idiots in charge of posting grades for my current confusion over whether I should be frustrated and discouraged right now over these potentially lost easy points. I guess I might find out on Thursday in lab.

Other parts of my life are going successfully. I finally got to reconnect on a fairly deep level with my two best friends over break and learned more about them in the process. I feel less alienated from them, and less intimidated by them now. I am still insecure in myself when around them, but at least external intimidation is not so much a part of these woes anymore. I got to reconnect with my parents, my grandmother, my aunt, and most importantly to me right now where I'm at in my life, my nephews. We shot some hoops over break and had a blast with it. I got to watch Topgun for the first time with them (though they had already seen it before... which I did not know whether to interpret myself after as overly sheltered, under-cultured, or over-worked). In any case, I loved the movie and recall seeing bits of it in the past, probably with my older brother Mike who has been into airplanes since he was a zygote. Work is going well. I made a breakthrough in my search for regulatory sequences and transcription factors that coordinate the expression of the potassium channels of interest to me now that I found out how to compare the homologous genes between rats, mice, and humans. I finally brought my ergonomic keyboard down to school so that my wrists do not hurt anymore. I still need to find a mouse for the same reason, but that will take some searching.

Now to enumerate my failures... or at least those which appear as such. My hand seems like its on fire with the unknown disease that plagues it. I don't know if this will heal or when it will heal, but it's really dragging me down that it is just always there... neither getting better nor worse in any predictable manner. I didn't get any homework done over the entire week of break, which means that it is sitting like a ton of bricks upon me right now. This is the only break from such work that alleviates the stress it causes me. It's painful to me that I'm noticing my own language turning very simplistic, losing whatever artfulness it ever possessed. I guess I'm just out of practice, or haven't read enough lately to whet my style. Syntactically I've always been a bit awkward I guess, because I notice formal ambiguities in the way dependent clauses and appositives may be placed. Comma under use and over use is a symptom of this, though I usually err on the latter just to be safe.

Day 3 continued

(This was an old draft that I had saved from first semester sophomore year some time.  I found other drafts that I didn't think Google had saved, but I guess they did, so now I guess I'll post them post facto).

Song of the moment, because I guess I already gave the song of the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ARX4kFdpk

I shall be posting some of the things that God has been showing me and the things that I have been finding in the Bible. I warn that there will be mixed questions that seem like statements and statements that are really questions. Do not be fooled, I don't have all of this figured out, but I am working towards it, and if God chooses to let me reach the answers I seek, then so be it, and if not, then I will have learned from the journey. The goal is to honor God, not just to solve mysteries.

Jonah.
Even though one of the most well known characters of the Bible grappled with the idea that God has the ability to "go back on His stated intentions" in heavily anthropomorphic terms (when in this case we have already seen that God may have been intentionally ambiguous about His real intention for the city of Ninevah). Though at first glance, this frustrates my goal of figuring out God's justice/how He is able to sustain an apparent contradiction, it is very encouraging to me that, even though I cannot quite grasp it, neither could at least one of the figures in the Bible itself. It seems this issue is a lot older than I initially thought, and as such, it seems like something that God is intentionally keeping... well... maybe not a mystery per se, but at least ambiguous, meaning, that maybe it's not necessarily that there is no answer out there, but there are a few to choose from, though which one is clearly right remains uncertain. After studying linguistics a very little, I understand that there is much purpose for intended ambiguity, though it will take me some more prayer to understand what that purpose might be, as well as to find the context of a different example.

Differences between P and J accounts of God.
-Abraham pleads with God, makes Him seem more merciful and just in human terms. Destroys Sodom and Gomorrah because there were no righteous people; they were all even from their old to their young.
-P tells a different story with the Egyptians. Here, He is trying to emphasize the all-powerful nature of God, and coming from his priestly background, gives all reverence and fear due to God, so much so that it is unthinkable in this narrative to challenge or question God's will, even when it is to destroy the firstborn of all from Pharaoh to even those people oppressed by Pharaoh (those in his dungeon) in Egypt. But lets look at this; what is God's main purpose? Is it to punish Pharaoh? Or is it to convince Himself to the Israelites in a way that they would understand and believe in Him and know His might? One must bear in mind the entire time that God is the One Who created the law in the first place. Initially, this doesn't sound like that good of an argument, that God can do whatever He wants... but isn't that the case? The real question is, what does God want? Even this is not so simple a question, because He can use, and often does, indirect means to accomplish His will. This gets into the difference between God's hidden will and his revealed will. We are only given his revealed will, and that is really all we have to work with. Sure, people can speculate all they want about what God wants, saying that anything in existence must be His will because it exists (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyyRX__4jQE) <- NOT the song of the day... is this necessarily the case though? Maybe? but even if it did this very well could fall into God's hidden will, which we cannot understand and should not try to--I don't think there exists a clear method of justification for God's own actions (does God even need justification for Himself? No, He doesn't need anything. Or is this something that is brought in as something to communicate between God and man). This does not mean that we should stop trying to understand God's justice so far as it is imparted in His revealed will. That is what I shall try to do, because it is something that is... well... a lot more possible to be done. Does this sound like I am making excuses? It may appear that way to someone who does not first believe God and start all of their logical thought processes from this. I still wrestle with telling the difference between what can be known and I should strive after, and what cannot, but this is something that only God can tell me, so I should not worry about it. I shall seek the truth and let God decide how much of it He will let me find without worrying about it. What else can I do more?

[And once again, the place that I am at in Final Fantasy X more or less mirrors my life (this is the song playing at the part I am at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_JiRpDJJRU&feature=related)]

I'm never quite sure what to name blog posts like this, because they are often multi-themed and sometimes lack focus, so for this, I shall wait til the end to title it and see if that works better than trying to think of one before writing.

I have grown an unusual appreciation of doing tasks by hand lately rather than using machinery that would make the job a lot easier/more convenient, etc.  For the first time this summer, I had to wash all of my dishes by hand because my apartment did not come with a dishwasher (or microwave, or countertops, etc.).  For the first time ever, I washed some of my clothes in the sink, mostly because I didn't have time to run a full-load in the washing machines down here, but also because it's a lot cheaper.  The one thing that struck me about running all of these mundane procedures by hand is that it affords me the ability to be as thorough as I desire with something.  It even lessened my frustration with the task, because often I would get upset at washer/dryers because even after inserting an exorbitant amount of quarters, they still did not do anything of a good job of cleaning my laundry.

I think this concept is one of the reasons that stained glass crafting is appealing to me so much, because I can rely solely upon the work of my hands and be as delicate or as rough as I please and not have to rely (for the most part) on any type of black-box machine to do the work/art for me in a way that I might not want it to exactly. I guess this is why some artists don't like to use computers.  Not only can they make the art more impersonal, but for some, they never quite work as precisely as one's own fingers.

I love these little lessons that everyday chores can teach you.

Rainmaker

Encouragement comes in the strangest forms sometimes.  I went to an Iron Maiden concert last weekend, not really having listened to them much before that, so I was in for more than a few surprises.  Even though much of the time I could not really make out what Bruce Dickenson's high-flying operatic metal vocals were trying to say, there were several songs that stuck out to me in a significantly deeper way than I would have expected from a Maiden show...

Rainmaker
When I was wandering in the desert and was searching for the truth .
I heard a choir of angels calling out my name.
I had the feeling that my life would never be the same again 
I turned my face towards the barren sun.

And I know, of the pain, that you feel the same as me.
And I dream, of the rain, as it falls upon the leaves. 
And the cracks, in our lives, like a cracks upon the ground.
They are sealed, and are now, washed away.

You tell me we can start the rain.
You tell me that we all can change.
You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away.
You tell me we can start the rain.
You tell me that we all can change.
You tell me we can find something to wash the tears.

And I know, of the pain, that you feel the same as me.
And I dream, of the rain, as it falls upon the leaves. 
And the cracks, in the ground, like the cracks are in our lives.
They are sealed, and are now, far away.


I don't like to constantly keep track of how long it has been since the breakup, because it makes the waiting seem like it will be a lot longer because so little chronological time has actually passed.  In reality it has only been 2 months and 15 days since the Greater End of the relationship, but it feels like it may have well been a year, since so much has happened.  Because of the severe disagreement between chronological, standardized time and perceived time, I'm not exactly sure if saying that the 'cracks are sealed and far away' is really true in saying that they are far away, at least on the scale of time.  


Between then and now much has transpired.  I've been afraid to come back to this blog and attempt to make a log of it all because for a long time I doubted my ability to analyze myself correctly.  I no longer have these doubts about my perception, so the only fear that remains is of writing on this blog upon which so much evil has passed from my lips.  But I now realize that I can face what I said before, accept it for what it was, change, and move on to write over it and sever my ties to the foolish boy who let those emotions take full-control of him.  There is a note I would like to write about what I have learned recently about the difference between Honesty and Truthfulness, but I would like to save that for another post.  


I have met with failure many times between that Great Failure and now, and if there is one thing that my scars spell out to remind me, it is to never succumb to failure, neither completely by giving up, nor partially by letting a dark storm cloud of guilt and regret hang over me and drag me so far down in depression that the one failure spreads its venom into other parts of my life that were previously successful.  No longer does failure reign over me.  Confidence is my weapon against it, confidence in myself to be able to pick myself up and walk on, and hope in what I am walking toward: a list of many goals that God and I have worked out with each other to make me grow and mature into the man I want to be and will become/am becoming.  


Reading a ton of new books lately has given my mind a lot more raw material to work with, from which I can produce new thoughts and expand my paradigm or correct the errors that had led me before.  I plan on doing a lot of writing on what I have been learning on here, but it shall be better organized into more smaller posts rather than lumped into this one.  


I finally have started to accomplish one of my many goals (which I may or may not post on here eventually) of learning to do something that is graphically artistic.  I used to be alright at sketching, but that art has been lost to me, probably because I never properly learned how to hold a pen/pencil and the more I type things, the more I unlearn the ability to physically write.  My newfound hobby of crafting stained-glass is something that I can enjoy much more though, and I'm so glad that I found it (more like it was shown to me).  Carefully imagining and drawing out the template, wisely selecting just the right piece of glass, choosing the perfect marbling pattern, color, texture, opacity, quality, age,... scoring its surface and cautiously breaking it into workable pieces, and then my favorite part: slowly grinding it down, repeatedly wearing it away until it becomes the desired shape with smooth curves and straight lines intersecting at just the right angles.  Somewhere in there is a metaphor for the 'sandpaper treatment' that I am getting from life currently: repeating the same weekly pattern over and over again, doing the same jobs in lab and learning a nuance or small perfection with every cycle, making the same sandwich over and over and having it get more delicious every time with every small variation I put on it, throwing the same kicks and techniques in martial arts thousands of times over until it becomes subconscious and I make an immaterial connection with my opponent's structure which I then manipulate to my advantage.  I am now practically learning the importance of small change and slight perfection, and how relieving it is that I do not have to make the chasm-sized leaps from the start to finish of my dreams and goals that I thought I had to before.  I've noticed that since this paradigm shift, I have become a lot less discouraged with myself, and a lot more patient, even if I royally screw up or don't see perfectly constant improvement, because I know it will come if I keep working at it, I have faith and confidence in myself and in God, that He will bring me to perfection in whatever I truly apply my hand to.  And if I do not, then it is no longer a waste in my eyes.  A failure, yes, by sheer definition, but not a waste.


I hesitate to say that I will finish this later, so I will conclude with the last thought, even though there is still much more to be said.  I know it will come out later in other posts, so for now, I bid thee adieu, adieu, adieu...


(also, a note to myself or anyone else reading this: my intent for this blog has changed.  Initially I had only set it so that one person other than myself could read it as another means of communication between us, but I have now opened it up to anyone willing to read, and this shall be another archive of my life for anyone who wishes to learn from or to help me do the same).