So, mysticism is a word, and demystification is a word, but demysticism is evidently the illegitimate child borne of my imagination, tried and found wanting by spell check. It matters not; I use it anyway.

It's weird when you realize your parents are human. What's worse is to realize they've only been alive a little more than twice as long as you have, and you don't feel like you've been living very long. So, even if learning continues at a linear rate, while I think learning is more asymptotic than that, they know roughly twice as much as you do. And that might seem like a lot, but when you consider everything there is to know, particularly in predicting the best course of action and all the subtrees made by roads less traveled, they really don't know very much. Mathematically, it's same; they're one depth in the tree ahead of you.

It's surreal to me, to realize how little they know, and yet how much influence they have in my life, because I grew up idolizing them, deifying them. That, of course, is not to mean they are unwise, or that their opinions shouldn't matter.

I guess what I'm thinking most about is that they lived lives before I was born. Their experiences weren't in black and white. They weren't stories on pages. They were real, like mine are. My dad was engaged to another woman before my mom. That had to be an interesting story to live. But to me, it's the same as Moses parting the Red Sea, which I'm sure was even more awesome to behold, but I can't live that. In some sense, I think I comprehend it too well. I'm clearly not getting all the details if I think I understand it. And the same goes for my dad's life.

My mom's anecdotal story about buying her first car at sticker price was not something out of a sitcom. (It did happen in the West Wing though.) Her boyfriends were real, and I'm guessing all but one is still alive. When her boyfriend Bob died in a car accident, that must have been more traumatizing than any of the six or seven deaths I've dealt with in the last year and a half.

I can't seem to get it through my mind that they're just people. They lived twenty-seven and twenty-eight years before I was born, just doing what they felt right, or what they wanted to. They just lived, just like I'm living, and yet, when I was born, they where flat characters. They knew what was right, and their word was law. Now they're people again. They can be wrong, and their mistakes mean more to me.

I remember one time my parents got into an argument. They didn't argue very often, and my sister and I always liked to listen if we could. We rarely understood the arguments, and before anything really happened, they moved it into their bedroom, and we knew not to eavesdrop, so rarely did we get much of a picture of what was going on, but arguments were rare, and rare meant different, and different meant interesting (not to be confused with enjoyable). One time, my dad had had enough, and told my mom to go to hell loud enough that I could hear. My sister was probably at her friend's for the night, because I don't remember her being there. After the argument, I was upstairs playing Nintendo, and my dad came up and apologized for saying that to my mom, because she didn't deserve it and so on. I knew it was out of character that he would say something like that, and so I easily forgave him. Now I wonder if it was out of character. What is character if not the way we act and speak? Can we say something out of character when we're impassioned? What if he's just human, and he was angry? Of course he didn't mean that he wanted my mom to go to hell, but what if that's how he acts and talks? It might not be pleasant, but it's more real.

Now I think back to when my dad had his affair. Over the previous year or so, he'd slowly left my life as it was. He had just become a space that he used to fill, as he dealt with the things that troubled him. Within moments of him telling me what had happened, he went from being that void to being the antagonist. Only in the best of literature do you really get to know the antagonist, feel compassion for them, realize they're human too.

Ender's Game comes to mind because toward the end, you start to feel for the aliens. But then, the aliens never really were the antagonists. It was the humans that you really didn't feel for. Ender's Game was interesting, and made me feel something, but was not a book I'd call great literature.

Whenever I think about flat characters, I think of To Kill a Mockingbird, because that's the first time I'd been introduced to the concept, and Atticus is the epitome of flat. He was always right, always wise, always righteous. There are other flat typecasts. One of them is the antithesis of Atticus's. In that moment in my parents' room, my dad became that one.

On the other side is the round character, his daughter, whom you feel for, relate to, and understand as she deals with things. In my life, there is but one round character: me. I'd really like to change that. My parents are starting to warp, and that's a good sign. I think my sister is becoming rounder too.

I'm finding it's very hard for me to place myself in other people's shoes. I'm constantly trying to see how their position and actions relate to my own life, and what effect it will have on me. Oh, your boyfriend broke up with you? I'm sorry to hear that. How can I learn from his and your mistakes? I think it's good to learn vicariously, but I also think you'll do that automatically by thinking from their position, as you try to be there for them.

I remember feeling scared in the following months, scared that I'd follow in my dad's footsteps. I remember fearing I'd tear apart my family someday. What I dreaded most, I think, was to become flat. Flat characters don't get to choose. Of course, had I actually thought about it that way, I wouldn't have worried about it, because I won't become flat, not in my own life. In truth, none of us are flat. We all get to choose, and that's why life even matters. How boring it would be if we were all typecast.

But, as this demysticism is happening in my mind, as my dad becomes rounder, it's easier to have compassion for him. What he did was abominable, but he didn't do it because he is evil. He didn't do it because the author needed him to. He just makes mistakes, just like I make mistakes. He had twenty-eight years of experiences I never lived. And he's real.

This thinking also begs to consider mid-life and death.

Men (typically) go through mid-life crises because they feel their life is half over, and what have they accomplished? I wonder if mid-life crises existed before America, and its unhealthy fixation on accomplishment. We weren't put into life to accomplish; we were put into life to live. People are always searching for "the secret to life" or "how to be happy" and yet all they do is try to accomplish, try to achieve. You will never achieve enough.

There's freedom in knowing that. There's freedom in knowing that we don't need to achieve in order to be happy. That's not our purpose. Our purpose is simple: to love and try to understand God. If we try to understand God, if we try to put ourselves in his shoes, several things will happen.

First, we'll love God's creation because God is a creator and there is no creator better than he. (I have issues with people who say humans aren't creators, merely rearrangers. We do create. We are creative. God intended us to be.)

Second, it follows that since we are God's creation, we will love each other. We are God's greatest creation, valued by God more than the rest, so it only makes sense to love ourselves most. God has a heart for people, and so to understand God is to love people as he does.

Then we'll be blessed. It is more blessed to give than to receive, and if we love people, we will give. Giving doesn't have to be gifts. We can give time, and surely, love takes time. If you want to know the secret to happiness, then seek blessing -- give.

I've obviously not experienced mid-life yet, so perhaps I don't understand it all. After all, my parents are just being thawed from their frozen positions as gods. Still, I wonder what effect mid-life will have on someone that doesn't intend to achieve, but only wishes to seek God, and really know him. What will he see when he looks back on his life? Won't he just look forward to the next forty years? Won't death then be a continuation of life on earth, but in an even purer form? Eternity loving God, being loved by God, loving people, and being loved by people. Is there something better? Is there some number of achievements any of us would trade for that?

Anyway, I've yet again stayed up too late, and yet again avoided studying for my math. Tomorrow I won't have much time to study unless I skip Hime's Thursday night extravaganza, which I'd rather not do. I'll study between classes, I hope. After class, I'm going to attempt to go to Ella's birthday party. At the INN last night, it really seemed like she wanted me to go. Sometime this weekend I'm supposed to have lunch or dinner with Rosa. I'm looking forward to that.

Statistically, posts started in the middle of retreats have had a low submit-rate, so we'll see how this goes. Also, it's only been three days, and I haven't been especially active for coming up with new thoughts. So, I hope for your sake this is a shorter post, or well, I might suggest reading a word, rolling a die, skipping that many words, and repeating, so as to ingest some more entertaining sentences. I'll even let you call it reading between the lines.

Thursday had one of the best math 331 lectures so far. Differential equations has some of the most beautiful math -- things that just pan out and work in ways you'd hope they would, but never would expect they would. You have a linear combination of vectors and one is obviously an eigenvector unless it's the zero vector, but when it is the zero vector, the other one is forced into eigendome. (Some are born eigen, some achieve eigendome, and some have eigendome thrust upon them -- but only when there's a duplicate eigenvalue.) I'm so glad I didn't have to figure that out, though. Coming up with this stuff would be so difficult, because none of it is obvious.

I switched jackets that day because it was pretty nice out, and inevitably, when that happens, I forget to transfer my keys. Gaul loaned me his with the promise that I'd be in the room when he got back. As I was walking out of Bondage Hall, Jeff texted me, asking if we wanted to meet for lunch, so I about-faced and headed to Vendor's Row, where he bought me a hot dog. We sat at the fountain in Red Square and talked a bit. CCF had an "I'm Sorry" campaign going on, where a lot of us wore horrendously blue shirts with the white lettering: "I'M SORRY". The point of the shirts was to get people to ask about them, and to that extent, the shirts were quite successful. What we were sorry for was for misrepresenting Christ -- on a personal level and as the church as a whole throughout history. A lot of people have been offended by people of the church for various reasons, most of which were because they were acting apart from the way Christ would. I just can't see someone who valued life so much bombing abortion clinics or leading the crusades. Nor could I see someone who cared about people so much, so selflessly, making fun of people in a cruel, mocking way. I know I've done it, and I really am sorry for it. I also need to continue working on it, because I still do it. So, Jeff and I talked about that a bit. I got mixed responses to the shirts. Gaul, I don't think, thought they were a good idea, arguing that we ought to apologize to Christ, not to other people. I think an apology is needed on both accounts, and certainly if it was to have a positive effect on the people, it had better be genuine, and had better succeed an apology to Christ, repentance. A couple people in my math class asked, and they said it was a good idea: "That's really cool." For the four days the campaign ran, we all changed our Facebook profile picture to an image of the shirt, so Curly, who has always hated religion, and I get the feeling he especially dislikes Christianity, took the image and replaced the text with "Actions speak louder than words". That response really bothered me. Part of me thinks he's right, but another part of me thinks what we were doing was an action. People can't know we're sorry unless we tell them, right? Marvel disagreed with it on the basis that he felt we were trying to do a mass outreach to a bunch of diverse people, rather than a single community, where those things usually do well -- that to reach Western, it has to be on a personal basis through relationships. Bob said every time he saw the shirt, he wanted to go up to them and say "You're forgiven." To that, I thought, Oh good, thank you. Will you go to church with me then? Donna said she heard more negative responses than positive ones from people talking about the shirts. Bill and Tonics each said they wanted a shirt, and Bill bought one (I don't know if Tonics got the chance). Still another response, Hime's friend Socks (which is her cat, Socrates's, nickname), who joins us at Hime's house on Thursday nights (so this response was actually after the conversation with Jeff) thought it was the greatest act of the church since feeding the five thousand. Further, she's the person I know that has the most reason to be angry with the church, having been literally abused by deranged people in the name of Christ. From that, Jeff and I talked a bit about other campus ministries. We discussed the Genocide campaign that was in Red Square a week or two ago. Apparently the first day that they started, we had a second grade field trip on campus. Great guys, well done. The thing that bothers me most about it is that abortion isn't even genocide! We're not targeting a race unless you make the profound argument from the other point of view that abortions typically occur among the lower class citizens, who are still typically not white people -- but they would never argue that. No, they've decided to redefine genocide to mean targeting a group of people, and they consider unborn children a group of people, but that neglects the "genos" prefix. It's really pedocide or maybe there's a baby equivalent prefix -cide. So, that's not a ministry, but we discussed it in light of doing something of a similar style with an entirely different view (though not pro-choice). The issue is that it comes off as mocking, and well, things fall apart after that.

I went home after talking with Jeff, and got there a good ten minutes before Gaul got back. He never has to know. Programming Workshop was ridiculously easy this week. I guess he got enough complaints about the NP-Complete problems, he thought he'd hit the other side of the spectrum. Also, five minutes into class (he still hadn't posted the problem), one of the students went to see him and make sure he remembered. He said, "I'm on my way to lunch." The guy asked if he had posted it yet, and he said, "I'm going to go post it and go to lunch." Good game, Professor Hearne, good game. The assignment was to count the number of carries that occur in the addition of two unsigned integers. Bob was going to write the code for this one, but I knew it would be pretty short, and I knew how to do it fast, so I decided to race him. When I was halfway done with my copy, Visual Studio loaded on his computer. Yay vim. After comments, my program was 36 lines of code. The site we usually check our answers against is broken, though, so we just turned in a couple test cases. On the way to turning it in, we found Perry in Clauson's office, and asked if he could think of any faster way than just checking digit by digit, which he couldn't. He asked us if we'd ever figured out the cups problem from three weeks ago, which we hadn't, but Clauson got interested in it, so I explained the problem to him, while Bob turned in our assignment. Clauson came up with a reasonable solution within about 15 minutes (which surprised me) but in the worst case, was just as bad as brute force. (You might skip this part.) The worst case input for his algorithm was three vectors in Z³, each with one non-zero number, where all three numbers were relatively prime to each other. The obvious answer, given {v₁ = <a,0,0>, v₂ = <0,b,0>, v₃ = <0,0,c>} is {bcv₁, acv₂, abv₃} which you could do O(1), but obviously doesn't work for other cases. I may have just figured out the answer. I will get back to you. At any rate, I respect Clauson as a CS professor more now than I had previously. I've never had him, and never really met him, but he's taught a bunch of my non-CS friends in low level GURs and none of them had good things to say.

On Friday, yesterday, Gaul missed our math class because he had another test he had to prepare for. He didn't miss a lot, mostly more of the same, but still some interesting math. Seriously guys, Differential Equations is beautiful. You have these basic straight line solutions that work in most cases, and then there's a bunch of exceptions, but each of them have an equally beautiful solution, and you can usually tell even more about them than with the original.

Around 4:20, David picked me up with Will and a girl whose name I really should know, but can't remember, for the INN's Spring Retreat. She seems cool though. I've seen Will's name around a lot. We have about six hundred and three mutual friends on Facebook from both the INN and CCF. He wants to be a librarian; I'm proud I've yet to enter our library. Still, aside from that, I feel like I can really relate to him, in just our mannerisms and trains of thought. He was also my small group leader during the retreat, so I got to know him a bit from that as well as the car ride. I hope to get to know him better in the coming weeks, these last few weeks of school.

It's been really sad to think I'll be missing all these people in a month. I'll be able to visit and such, but it's not the same. I guess we'll see what happens.

Speaking of visiting campus, my mom has suggested that rather than buying the car I want, I should get a really cheap car I can pay cash for now, until I have saved enough money for the car I actually want, and then pay cash for that. First, paying with cash usually will get you more off the sticker price. Second, you're not paying any interest. Third, you can put the money you got from selling the first car towards a third car, because inevitably, cars die. It's kind of hokey, but she said I should pay myself a "car payment" each month, but rather than sending that check to someone charging me interest, it's money toward a newer car later. It makes sense to me. I guess the environment will have to wait for my pay checks.

The drive up was nearly worth the cost of the trip. I don't usually appreciate nature, but the mountains and the clear sky and the snow and rivers... I don't really know how to describe them other than awe-inspiring. Hallelujah, glory be to our great God. We are so blessed to live in Washington.

Around 12:30 this morning, I quit typing for the night. All relative dates so far ought to be pushed back once. The cup-problem solution I thought I'd come up with did not work, and I remembered the girl's name to be Melissa, though of course it really isn't because that's an alias. Carry on.

On Friday night, Chris spoke about the word "missional," and how Christ lived missionally. (How does missional pass spell check and missionally not?) Basically, it boiled down to one verse in John 1 that I've come to like a lot:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Grace and truth. After the talk, we split into our small groups. Lulu joined ours. Will posed the questions on the sheet he'd been given to our group and we discussed them. The last question was something about why focusing on grace and truth matters in our lives. Lulu thought about it a second and then said, "Because nothing else matters." I think she's absolutely right.

After a snack and game time, there was a dance. Like with all dances, I didn't really participate, but I talked with Chris a bit. He was the one that got me to go on the trip in the first place, and it was good to get to know him a bit better. He looks quite a bit like Jeff, and I used to get them mixed up, as well as his predecessor, Lance. It turns out Chris and I are alike, at least with dances. It's just not our thing. We also enjoy knowing what various file extension acronyms mean. XNA is not acronymed! At some point during the dance, Minnie, Catie, and Donna wanted to play Hearts. Donna talked herself up, and asked if I was ready to lose. "I was born ready!" We only played one round, before they wanted to dance again. Catie had 0; I had 5; Minnie had 6; Donna had 15. Alas, I did not lose, at least not to her.

On a side note, things between her and me were really great this weekend. I'm not interested in her that way anymore, and I think that's probably the reason it was so fun. It's nice that it worked out -- I've had it happen where things were good, I started to like her, and after that ended, things were still really awkward -- but it'd be nicer if it could be fun with a girl AND we were interested in each other. All the same, I'm quite content with the way things are between me and her.

The next morning, we got up at five to seven for breakfast. The vast majority of us went from there to the top of a stretch of river, where we put on wet suits and booties with holes in them, got in groups of seven, were assigned a guide, and got in rafts. Bridget and I were among the last picked, and had a group of two, so all the groups of eight dropped a person to join ours. Chris, Joe, Michael, Karen, and Dustin joined our crew. Junkyard Dave was our guide. I'm so very glad he was, too, because I didn't like what I saw of any of the other guides, whereas this guy seemed to be pretty laid back, but still knew what he was doing. Also, it turned out we had a pretty amazing crew because none of us left the boat unintentionally, and I think we're the only raft to be able to say that. Then again, our guide fell out. I find that kind of ironic, but in that hour or so before he fell out, we'd been trained well, and we did just fine in the biggest section of rapids without him. In all, it was a great time. Rafting isn't one of those sports I could revolve my life around, but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to go (unless there were external circumstances, as was the case with this weekend), which has been my opinion all along. At the beginning, all the groups were pretty ornery and Joe threw water on several with the bucket, which was stolen when we had to walk our rafts around a dam, and reclaimed at lunch time. After lunch, though, no one seemed too ready to pick a fight. We were just enjoying the ride. In the second section of rapids, Rock and Roll, there was one particular rock our guide called "Satan's Eye," which I heard later was a euphemism because we were a church group for "Satan's Ass." Dave was telling us about it a little bit before we got to the rapids, saying we should try and stay left of it. Not really knowing what we were trying to stay left of -- it all looked like fast moving, hilly water to us -- we went right over it. It was probably among my top two favorite parts, tied with the entire section in which Dave fell out halfway through. There was another part that some of the groups avoided, but he was confident in our paddling abilities so we followed the group in front of us right into it. We got about halfway over it, and it tried to suck us back down into it. I literally could not push my paddle backward because the current was so strong (plus I'm not exactly made of arm muscle). After what felt like a minute of battling, we did succeed, and that felt good. The whole while, Bridget was pointing out Osprey and their nests. I get the feeling she likes birds as much as Hime likes fish. She said it annoyed some of her crew when she went on the trip last year, but it didn't bother me, nor the rest of the group I think. She's another person I'd like to get to know in the coming weeks.

After we got back, there was quite a bit of free time, in which I started writing this post. Around 4, Jeff and another intern gathered two guys and myself for a little workshop where we discussed James 1. It was a good discussion. One verse in particular stuck out to me (and the preceding two for some context), James 1:6-8:

⁶But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷Those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸they are double-minded and unstable in all they do.

I feel like I do that a lot. These verses are about asking God for wisdom. I think I ask God for help deciding what to do in various situations but don't actually expect to solid response, and then just go off of whatever "wisdom" I already had, which tends to be none. "They are double-minded and unstable in all they do." That kind of reminds me of my last post, don't you think? Anyway, I prayed this time expecting, or forcing myself to expect an answer, and I think I got one. I feel a whole lot more at peace with things, particularly regarding girls.

For those of you who don't know, which I guess now that I've started a new blog, and most of my readers of my old one have quit reading anyway, is most of you, I have this kind of internal dialogue that goes on in my head. My thoughts sound audible to me, and "I" don't make them all. In 9th grade, I scared my mom by telling her I heard voices. I pretty much knew I wasn't schizophrenic, but I didn't know if this dialogue was normal or not, all the same. So, it turns out I'm not crazy. Good news that, especially since you've devoted your life to reading my blog, it seems, if you've made it this far. Anyway, there are typically two "other voices." Originally there was just me and the other, the one I "talked" to. If I was replaying a conversation in my head, I was me, and the other was whoever I was talking to. As this relationship developed, whenever I debated something in my head, such as whether to do something or not, or how to proceed in some situation, that voice always took the high ground, the right answer, the way I know I should do it, and typically the hard way. Soon, another voice entered the picture that did exactly the opposite. It didn't tell me what I should do, so much as it would play devil's advocate to whatever I thought was right. Often, the two voices would play out as a debate against each other while I sat back a "listened." Of course, they're all my thoughts. I'm thinking everything they "say," but this just seems to be the way I've organized my thought process. What's weird though, is that I don't actually have to "say" a thought aloud in my head to think it. The "audible" part is the echo of the thought, so I'm thinking everything at least twice. Where was I going with this?

Oh right. One of the things the Obi-wan voice ("I've got the high ground!") seems to like to say is, "Don't you see?" Somehow it knows when I'm missing the point entirely and dwelling on the little things that don't matter compared to overarching theme. After I prayed that prayer, it said, "Now you see."

While on the topic, Ella went on the retreat, too. She and I talked a little bit here and there, but nothing on the scale that we first talked with online or when we watched the Incredibles. A couple times I think she glanced at me when she thought I wasn't looking. But then, that's because I wasn't looking and could only see her out of the corner of my eye, so she may have been looking at something else entirely. Anyway, since praying that prayer I've kind of felt like she's too hard to read to bother devoting much thought to in the arena of potential relationships. I still think about her as a friend and such, like I do with Swood, Hime, Gaul, Minnie, and whoever else, and I might still be interested, but in the meantime, I think I'll just let whatever happens happen. Also, from time to time, though my focus was typically on whatever I was doing at the moment (which was more often than not on this trip, thinking about God), I still thought about Rosa, though she was back in Bellingham studying for her two tests tomorrow.

At dinner I discussed what the workshop thing was about with Chris. It turns out that the staff and interns had discussed the same passage, and it sounds like, talked about a lot of the same questions. One he asked me was, "Is it okay to doubt?" We'd discussed that very question at length in our group. I basically came to the conclusion that there's a difference between doubt and vetting. With a child-like faith, we need to be asking "why?" We need the scientific method, in a sense, and I wouldn't consider that doubt.

That night, Lulu talked about the word 'evangelism' and what that means. First, she took a white board and got us to shout out ideas that come to mind when that word is used. A good ninety percent of them were negative. We, as the church, have failed in so many ways to evangelize. We've just gone about it wrong, I think. She then discussed what it meant when Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28:

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

This year she has always managed to come at a passage I'm well acquainted with from a different angle. In verse 16, it says "the eleven disciples." Twelve was how many there were before and it was a complete number and well organized. Eleven is not a very nice number. For one, it's prime. But it also has this sense of jumbledness to it. So this incomplete group goes to Jesus and they're probably pretty shaken up, in fact, it says that some doubted, even when they saw him, were in his presence. Then Jesus stepped closer to them. He didn't back away, like, "How dare you doubt that it's me?" or "Come back when you find your twelfth man." (Lulu was proud that she could throw in a football reference.) He stepped forward and encouraged them. He orderd them to go. He charged these eleven ordinary guys to go and make disciples of all nations. The word disciple there means learner or student. He doesn't say, "Go out and convert people to me," or "Go out and scare people away from hell," or "I want numbers!" He says, "Go talk about this thing I've done for you. Go get people interested. Go be academic about it. Go discuss." When it's put that way, evangelism seems so much better. It's not pushy. It doesn't need to be apologized for. And then he says, "No stress." We can't convert anyone. We can't make people Christians. That's the Spirit's job. Our job is to talk and to serve, and that's really it. Talk and serve, truth and grace.

After our small groups discussed Lulu's talk, we had some more free time. I found myself teaching five girls how to play Idiot, though several of them had played variations of it, with two decks. Throwing down 6 sevens certain changes the game a bit. A couple rounds in, someone suggested Signs, which I'd been hoping to get some people to play the whole trip. We didn't get to play long before Sabbath, but fun was still had, and Donna learned a new game.

Sabbath had the best set of songs I've sung in a while. Every song was one of my favorites.

This morning, we got up for a 9am brunch. Then Jim gave a message. I was pretty distracted and regrettably don't remember very much of it. After our small group discussion of it, we packed, cleaned, grabbed a sack lunch, and left. Melissa and I slept for quite a while in the back of the car on the way back. It must have been quite a while, because the trip felt like half the time. Maybe it actually was half the time, somehow. It took four to five hours to get there, and about three to get back, I think. Weird. It was pretty much dead silent the whole time, except for the iPod playing through the speakers. I think we're all tired.

That about brings us to now, where I'm frustrated. During some free time last night, I had been talking to Ella a little bit. One of the girls in my small group apparently knew Ella pretty well and came and sat between us. I was in the conversation, but I didn't say a whole lot. Ella's birthday is on Tuesday, and the girl asked what she was going to do, to which Ella said she'd want to do something on Thursday. Then she sort of waved her hands in the table's direction, and specifically at me, I think, and said, "Everyone here is invited." I somewhat got the feeling that she invited me because she didn't want to hurt my feelings, but I don't know that for sure. I'm terrible at reading people, particularly girls I hold some interest in. I knew there'd probably be a facebook event, but I didn't expect to get invited, at least not if she only meant it as a gesture. But, while writing this post, I did get an invitation from her via facebook. Her friend had created the event and she invited me to it, I suspect along with a bunch of other people, but facebook doesn't allow that thorough of stalking. I told Hime about it, and she said I shouldn't go because she thinks she only invited me to keep from hurting my feelings. I don't know either way. In the moment, that's how it seemed. Objectively, that's not how it seems, not to me (which makes it subjective). At any rate, I want to go if she wants me to go, but I have no way of figuring that out. I think what annoys me most, though, is the system. The position I'm in shouldn't exist in the first place. People should say what they mean, and avoid dancing this dance. For the record, I'd be annoyed were I in this position with anyone, or, at least any girl; guys don't put guys into this position, nor do they often care who shows up to their birthday party.

Well, I've successfully avoided yet another full night's sleep. I didn't even get to watch a movie, play Kotor2, or read any more of either of the books I'm reading.

Fickle is just about the best word to describe me right now. Fickle and busy.

It was nearly a month ago that I last wrote. I started writing something two weekends ago, but never finished it and, since I'm fickle, a lot of it doesn't apply anymore. Of course, most of what I write is an account of what happened, and what happened hasn't changed, so how it doesn't apply I'll leave up for interpretation.

Academically, this hasn't been a busy quarter. At twelve credits, I haven't had a whole lot of homework, though I do need to get myself in gear for senior project. I can't believe we have less than a month to finish. This quarter has whipped by.

But no, I've been busy because of friends. I have a lot more of them this quarter, seeing as how basically our whole mission trip team still hangs out from time to time.

So, had you not figured it out, I liked Donna for about a month. As far as anyone can tell, though, she wasn't interested in me that way, and I took a while to get the picture. We're still friends, perhaps better friends now that I'm not trying anymore, but it seems she and I will never be a couple, which I'm fine with. The story in my first post when I was at the restaurant with my grandparents was that I had just had my first real conversation with Donna, and we were messaging back and forth on facebook. I told my grandparents that Donna was a fan of the West Wing so I was practically ready to marry her. I was of course joking, but they didn't catch that. A little while later I figured out that they thought I was serious and practically spat while laughing that I barely knew her. After writing that, I think maybe it was one of those situations you had to be there for, and also maybe you had to have my sense of humor, because I can't imagine my roommates laughing at it.

The day after I last posted here (or anywhere for that matter -- I don't post anywhere else unless you count comments on facebook pictures), I was introduced to a girl named Ella by our mutual friend Christie. When I met her, she was preforming the most awkward hug I've seen (only improved upon by her in later weeks) on Christie. It was a sort of full-body hug, where she threw her arms around Christie, pressed her head into Christie's chest, and squeezed one of Christie's legs in between hers. Christie's facial expression was hilarious. Actually, both faces were hilarious; Ella's was of bliss.

I'd seen Ella around the INN before. I always thought she was cute, but seeing a cute girl was never justification enough for me to introduce myself. Even so, when Christie introduced us, I expected to forget her name like I do everyone else's. Somehow, though, that night I remembered long enough to facebook friend her. The next day, facebook chat was released for Western's network, and after class, she and I talked for about eight hours. I became pretty infatuated with her rather quickly. During our conversation, it came out that she'd never seen the Incredibles, and I felt moral obligation to correct her ways. She suggested we watch it right then, but I had just been invited by Hime to go to the fish store, so we decided to do it the next day after class. A little later, I was exposed as one who'd not seen the Princess Bride, and apparently my sin was greater than hers. I should have removed the plank from my eye before trying to remove the speck from hers, but her eye fixing was already scheduled.

The next day, we did indeed watch the Incredibles after a grueling two hours trying to solve an NP-Hard problem in Programming Workshop. She and I, it seems, have a lot in common. We've had a similar upbringing, have similar testimonies, have different ambitions and passions, but similar compassions. We also have a very similar sense of humor, which is huge to me. It seems like a smart match to me. After the movie, we talked for about a half hour. She said that she didn't want to talk to me online very much because she wanted to get to know me and not cyber me. I completely agree, having the hindsight of dating Tubby (which was my nickname for her because she was so incredibly thin). It kind of made me excited too, because I took that to mean she wanted to get to know me in person, and that we'd then actually see each other.

However, two weeks later, we'd really not talked much. I'd talked to Rosa about it a couple times. I kind of got the feeling she didn't like how Ella was treating me, which I found cute.

Two weekends ago, I went to Useless Bay on Whidbey Island with a bunch of the people on the CCF Worship team, for a retreat. The cabin we stayed in (which was every bit as large as a house) was owned by the grandparents of one of the girls on the team. We had a really good time. The weather was overcast, and at times misty, but that didn't deter us from walking out on the beach. Three of the guys even climbed a bluff. When they were out of sight, the rest of us went back to the cabin and about an hour later, the guys returned. They didn't come back down the way they went up, so it was better that we left them. We played a game called Signs that was pretty ridiculous -- really fun for groups of about six to fifteen. I also met a guy in the CS major, well, we'd met before, but we became pretty decent friends considering we only hung out for a couple days.

There was a cute girl on the trip, and the only reason I was attracted to her was physical beauty. She's a nice girl and everything, don't get me wrong, but she just doesn't have the personality that I'd do well with in a relationship. It really bothers me that I was so attracted to her, when I liked Ella for much better reasons, even if she and I hadn't talked in a little while.

We got back on Sunday, and I immediately went to a brunch put on by the Jamaica trip girls in honor of the Jamaica trip guys. It was originally Hime's idea, and she did the most work (I think) toward getting it organized. I know I really appreciated it, and I suspect all the other guys did too. It was nice, too, because it was the first time in a few weeks that nearly all of us were in one place at the same time. A couple people were working, and there's a girl who is doing an internship in California, so obviously she couldn't make it, but the rest of us had a good time seeing each other again. Rosa manned the barbeque and did an excellent job.

I told Hime that night that I was thinking and could imagine Rosa and me together as a couple, but that I had no intention of doing anything about it. She actually seemed to be excited about the prospect of the two of us as a couple, which has never happened. Hime has always tried to dissuade me from liking a girl, and I've asked her a couple times why with Rosa it was different. "I like [Rosa]."

On Wednesday, I met with David for coffee at the Underground Coffeehouse. I've been here nearly three years and had never been in there. Neither of us actually got coffee, but we talked on one of the couches for a couple hours before my Senior Project review session on algorithms and data structures taught by Perry. I wish I'd had more classes with him. David and I talked about all sorts of things, kind of like Bill and I do, but something about the differences in our personalities makes it harder to talk at length, I think.

Rosa and I had planned to meet for coffee after David and I met, but I'd forgotten that I had the algorithms review, because I normally don't have anything after 1:30 on Wednesdays. So, we rescheduled for dinner after the class. She and I went to Boomer's, ordered burgers and shakes, and then went to Boulevard Park. We, too, talked for a couple hours. Somehow we got onto the topic of past relationships and I gave her the abridged history of my life related to girlfriends. In turn, she gave her experience with boyfriends. There's something that really should bother me because of my family's past, but for some reason it doesn't with her. And now I find myself doing what I said I had no intention of doing. We plan on having dinner again sometime next week.

Even before the Sunday of the barbeque, I'd kind of started giving up on the thing with Ella because she and I had talked so infrequently. I made small attempts to put myself in her vicinity after the INN, and it seemed like she was avoiding me, though since, she's assured me that was coincidence. We still haven't seen The Princess Bride, though we'd decided to schedule such a viewing the Tuesday after watching The Incredibles, at the INN. At any rate, I don't think she's interested in me. Like I said in the post I half wrote and then deleted, that if you were really devoted to me, you would have read, she seems like the kind of person that would treat everyone the way she treated me the first few days we got to know each other, so I wasn't foolish enough to think I was special.

This past weekend, I went home for Mother's Day. On Friday, I ran PowerPoint for CCF, and then went to Sabbath. Two weeks ago, I left my Bible at CCF, and Rufus picked it up for me. He forgot to bring it to CCF, though, and brought it when I was at Sabbath, putting it in the church's mailbox, so as to not interrupt. I walked across the room to get it, and sat back down near Rosa, mostly because I didn't want to walk back across the room, who happened to be sitting right behind Catherine. Catherine is actually what we call her, because Swood and I decided that's what she looked like she should be named, but she graduated last year. I think I was the only one she recognized at Sabbath so it was cool that I ended up sitting next to her. After Sabbath, Minnie and I had planned on playing Cranium, but there were several reasons we couldn't, so I went home and slept.

The following morning, Nala picked me up and she, her boyfriend's sister's best friend, and I went to the bagelry, another Bellingham/WWU treasure I'd not yet experienced. All I'll say is that they're some pretty fantastic bagels and cream cheese. Nala paid for mine, since I was out of cash. From there we headed south. We drove around rather than taking a ferry. It turned out that there was a bomb threat on the Kingston-Edmonds ferry anyway, so it's good we avoided that one. There were no ferries from Seattle to Bremerton or Fauntleroy to Southworth either. Somehow, we made it home in two hours, which I think is a record for people driving me.

After getting home, my mom was stressed about her homework, so I was doing chores and laundry while she worked, rather than the other way around. That evening we went to the Mariner's game, where we lost at the top of the second inning. It was still fun to go, though, and we made some attempt at a comeback. We got home around midnight. The atmosphere on the ferry is quite dependent on how the Mariner's do.

The next morning my mom and I searched for Mario Kart Wii for William's birthday, and a couple smaller toys for Lucy's. I bought the two of them a Mario Kart Wheel (Wiil?). We had to go to three stores to find Mario Kart. There wasn't a lot of hype about it -- I didn't even know it had come out the day I got it -- but I guess they were selling after people started playing it. From there we went to church, and we left a little early to get to the ferry, which was a half hour late. The night prior, my mom had called my aunt to ask what time we were supposed to arrive at her house, and she never called, so we just decided we'd get there when we got there, early or late.

We got there two hours after it was supposed to have started, two hours after the ferry came. My sister and I talked for a while. Our relationship is becoming more mature, I think. We used to never talk, but now we get along pretty well. Well, it's not that we didn't get along before, but we never talked either -- an indifferent relationship rather than a good one. The hot topic of the evening, it seemed, was my job at Microsoft and what I would do with the money, particularly in the ways of housing and car-buying. My family was pretty split down the middle as to whether I should buy or rent. My grandma suggested I rent for 3-6 months to see if I like the neighborhood before buying. As for cars, my sister thinks I should get a Prius, but I've done literally no research. I've heard, though, that Toyotas are higher quality than Hondas. We'll see I guess. What no one seemed to understand, though, was that I don't intend to be rich. I want to live way below my means, on $35k, or so. That leaves $45 to give away, which is something I want to do. My mom keeps saying that I'm not rich yet, that even though I have an $80k salary, doesn't mean I'm starting out with all that money, and so maybe for the first year, I shouldn't give as much as I'm hoping, so I can start off on the right foot. That's probably wise, but I worry that if I don't start in the habit of giving, it's going to be harder to start giving later. Also, it's not like I don't plan to invest a little, too, but my uncle asked me why I even care about gas milage, because I can just afford to buy more gas. Financial issues aside, I'd like to not hurt the environment as much; is that a bad thing? He also suggested I buy a big house and let rooms out to girls. Something tells me he and I aren't quite on the same page.

When I left I felt stressed and exhausted. It felt like my family had nominated me to inherit my grandpa's position. But I don't want to be a millionaire. I think if I ever became one, I'd feel like I hadn't given enough away. I've told several people this story since then and I'm kind of sick of myself now.

And now I believe it is time for some last thoughts that didn't really fit into the normally scheduled chronologically written writing. Yes, written writing. Deal with it.

Over the weekend Hime got a boyfriend, the guy that facebook has said she's been dating for a year or so now. (She was doing him a favor to get some stalker girl off his back.) I'm rather jealous of him, but I don't know whether it's as a guy or as a brother. At any rate, it's been hard for me. I think it's funny, though, that she gets all excited about some quality he's displaying and tells me about it, when I think I have that same quality in our relationship. Maybe I'm wrong. For example, they went to the aquarium, and on the ferry, she wanted to see something he had, and he never let her. I'm trying to remember the last time I gave into her on something I didn't want to do, especially something small.

Two Mondays ago I had been feeling a little flabby, which is so very unlike me, so I went with Gaul to the gym. We worked legs. We worked them hard, and I didn't even do the deadlifts. I was sore until Saturday, and I seemed to be getting worse for the first four days, not better. I started limping on Wednesday because my legs were so stiff. We had to run to catch the bus on Tuesday morning and I almost fell down the hill because I couldn't use some muscles that I'm apparently used to having.

The busses are something that have really gotten on my nerves lately. The 105 in the morning consistently shows up 4-7 minutes early. We're supposed to get there five minutes in advance, just in case that happens, but half the time, it's already leaving even if we do. Further, they added a bus, the 95, for people going to south campus to alleviate the 105's, but if the 105 gets there before the 95, everyone gets on it, and no one is there when the 95 gets there, leaving an empty, useless bus. If a bus gets there early, it should wait to leave until the time the schedule says it's going to leave.

Today I took the WASL of the CS department: the MFT, the Major Field Test. Technically it determines whether I can graduate, as I have to pass it, but no one from this school has ever failed, so I'm not too worried, especially as I think I did pretty well on it. I knew the answer to all but about two of them, I think, maybe three, but that's not to say I filled in the right bubble. I was having some difficulties with that, but I hope I caught most of them. It'd be like "Oh, the answer is C", and then I'd realize I was filling in E for some reason. There were two parts to the test, and after I finished the first part, I kept finding myself trying to fill in question 34 on part one, rather than the next question on part two.

Tonics dropped Senior Project today, so now it's just Lolbot, Curly, and I. (It sounds like it should be "and me," but you'd say "it is I," not "it is me" [though Underdog might disagree].) I'm not too worried about our project -- we've got a good start on it -- but I hope Tonics is alright. Her mom has fifteen forms of cancer and she's having issues with motivation and motivating her sisters, so I'm worried.

Alexander has started a fantasy book on LiveJournal. It's pretty entertaining, but it's still in its rough draft stages, I think. It has great ideas and content, but the occasional convention is messed up, and right now there's a lot of tell writing. When I get kitties for graduation, I think I'll name one of them after the cat in his story, Kotenok, which he said was Russian for kitty. The other thing is that he's posting as he writes the chapters, so I anticipate some plot holes to emerge that, were he to get this published, he'd have to fix. I can't blame him though; I have a plot hole just within this post. (I said that before Sunday I'd started to give up on Ella, and also that I felt bad for being distracted from her by the cute girl on the worship team retreat. Both are true.) Anyway, I really do find his story entertaining.

Last night I was at the INN and everyone was trying to get me to go on the Spring Retreat. The Coin Flip of Destiny (CFOD) that sent me to Jamaica said I shouldn't go on the retreat, but enough people talked me into it, that I went against it's nondeterministic wisdom. Everyone I told after that was pretty excited to have me along. That always feels good. The other reason I didn't really want to go, well, I did want to go, but I also wanted to stay home, was that I've done stuff the last two weekends, and I haven't gotten to sleep in adequately in a while. What I'd forgotten when I signed up, though, was that I had signed up for Man Day for CCF which was like $5 or so. Also, after that Nala and I were supposed to go to Boundary Bay, another of Bellingham's gems, so I had to take a raincheck.

On Monday night I went to Pizza Theology. This one was one on reading the scripture, which I'm ashamed to say, I don't on a regular basis, and when I do, it's like reading The Wheel of Time, and taking things at face value rather than really trying to figure out what it means contextually. Usually after a Pizza Theology, I come out the other end with a lot to think about; this time I felt overwhelmed. That might be good though. I remember a lot of what was said, and I can chew on it for a while. In the meantime, I need to start reading more consistently.

I think one of my favorite things about my Mac is Dictionary. It's so very nice to just always have a dictionary and thesaurus that runs faster than dictionary.com. Control+space dict <enter> word <enter>. Wallah!

I've decided to realias Dumb Girl as Eowyn because unless someone read the first entry here, they might be inclined to think I think she's dumb. Anyway, Eowyn and I have been text messaging every now and then over the past few months. She's dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, so we've been there for each other. It's been really helpful. I offered to bring her a monitor for the computer I gave her four months ago on Saturday, but she'd just had her wisdom teeth taken out, and so she was a little groggy. I wouldn't have minded seeing her in that state, if only to laugh, but I think she might have.

I think that's all for now. Minnie was reading my posts earlier and I don't want to deprive her any longer. Also I should probably work a bit on senior project. And I'm getting up early tomorrow morning to meet Bill for coffee since we couldn't meet on Monday. Everyone is so busy lately.