And a quick update...

Update

I guess this came off a little more depreciating then I would have liked for it to. Rest assured I do believe that I am very creative... I was just feeling at the time that I wasn't. I just feel like I have to learn how to better tap into said creativity. This was supposed to come across a little more hopeful than it did... anyways, enough with the forward and get reading!


I actually started moving today... If it were up to me I probably would have put it off longer but Andy got here today, so out went all of the things that I had in that room. I'm probably about half moved over to the new place, and the stuff that is here has begun to get organized. Hopefully I'll bring it over tomorrow.

It's 1:30 in the a.m. and I'm barely, if at all, tired. I woke up early... relatively at least, today so I'm not quite sure what has brought about this bout of restlessness. I need to do something with it so I think that I'm going to read after I'm done posting.

I watched V for Vendetta today and I'll say that it get worse with each subsequent viewing... maybe I'm just bitter about how the story got twisted and things that were left out that should have been in there.

I was playing guitar tonight as well. I'm glad that I took it up. My biggest problem is figuring out what I want to play. I'm too tight when just "goofing around" on it. I'm much looser and play much better playing a set of chords laid out for me. I know music and I know what sounds good when I hear it yet I can't bring myself to create. I have the same problem with words. When given a topic and an outline of what is needed I can, I believe, write well. However, when told to simply write I struggle to find something to write of. I feel that if I could just let go and take a chance that I could write something good. Am I cursed to be good at imitation and not creation? I hope not. The sounds are there yet I can't pull them out. The words are there and yet they aren't. Creativity is on the tip of my tongue and yet I cannot form the wind to blow it off into something new and beautiful. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to create things... however in my search all I have learned is repetition.

Helping my mom make cookies as a child was a chance... to follow a recipie.

Getting a science kit as kid was a chance... to follow formulas.

Drawing... was simply tracing.

Words, writing... was done in 3 to 5 paragraphs with an introduction, and conclusion. The body of the piece had to contain specific elements or it was with out merit. Oh, and make sure that it is on this topic. Whoever said that "restrictions breed creativity" needs to be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot.

Music... was intimate... yet never mine. It was someone else who was able to say what I wanted to. Someone else to create melodies and space in which I could lose myself. Maybe this is why enjoy it so... music is a haven... a haven in which I can lose myself. However this is off topic. When I finally got a guitar last year and learned to play I learned chords, and chord progressions that made up songs. Never anything that I made, always something by someone else to imitate.

So I find myself at 24 years, 6 months, and 13 days with an intense longing to create and no idea how to do so. Is there anyway to learn how to create? Or am I simply destined to follow, to imitate, to suffocate on my inability to remove the barriers in my mind that keep me from simply making.

On the plus side, blogging has served me well. To write with no restrictions, no expectations is liberating. Maybe there is light at the end of the creativity tunnel... no matter how far that light is in the distance.

I guess this didn't turn out to be the quick update the title said it would be.

Currently Reading... Ian McEwen - Saturday
Currently Listening to... Cobra Starship - Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)

Moving Day

Well, I don't know if I'll actually start to move today, but I definitely am going to start to pack some things up. I always dread moving... it's such a hassle. That and being a slacker by nature, work does not come naturally to me. For example, I've been putting off packing/moving for a couple of weeks now and since people are starting to come up here I finally have to get a move on. I still haven't applied for a loan for this coming semester... that I need to do seeing as I need to graduate this coming semester and the university, crazy as it sounds, doesn't let you take classes if you haven't paid for them. Sigh... I need to get all over these kinds of things so that procrastination doesn't define my last semester up here.

Let's see... it's been a while since the last update. I'll see what I can remember as to what has happened of late.

Last week, or I guess almost two weeks ago now Josh was house-sitting for his professor at his place on Little Traverse Bay. Needless to say I spent most of the week up there hanging out by the beach and almost dying. What's that? Almost dying? Yes... Kurt and I took the two person kayak out to the island five miles out into Lake Superior along with Anna and Maya in their canoe. We heard that the island was chock-full of raspberries ripe for the picking. Well we get out there and the raspberries are scarce to say the least. So after traversing the island a bit we decide to head out... only now the wind has changed so it doesn't promise to be the easiest trip back. Well we get probably two miles out before the waves turn to "flood the kayak" levels no matter what angle we take. Needless to say, Kurt and I take on too much water and flip. Desperately trying to save the kayak and make it to shore that happens to be about a mile off in the distance isn't something that I would like to repeat. Anna and Maya came over in the canoe, which was still handling the waves and helped us get the kayak to shore. And by shore I mean 30 or so foot tall rock face. Well the waves suck too much for us to reboard and try to make it back so we start to navigate the shallow waters by foot and carry the kayak with us. Somewhere between a quarter and half mile we give up on this quest because the waves are causing the kayak and canoe to slam into us every other second like a linebacker. We put the kayak and canoe as high up as we can and decide to get them in the morning. We then hike the last mile and a half, barefoot, over all forms of unfriendly rocks. Finally we get back safe and sound and with blistered feet. We return in the calm of the morning to get the vessels, and let me tell you that it's amazing how much nicer and less deathly that hike was while wearing shoes.

What else has happened recently... ah yes, vespers.

Two Thursdays ago we,(Kurt, Carey, and I), found out that we would get to play vespers together. We had lobbied for this for a bit and now got the opportunity. Kurt was on lead acoustic, Carey on acoustic bass and backing vocals, and me on rhythm acoustic and vocals. Unfortuately late Thursday night leaves not much time for practice... especially when I work Friday and Saturday night and Carey works Friday during the day. Both Carey and I practiced individually with Kurt once prior to last Sunday at noon we finally all got together and finally got some quality practice in. We took a break for Carmelita's in Calumet and to make powerpoint slides but outside of that it was pretty much straight practicing from noon to 9 when we played. I don't know how my fingers were able to last but last they did. It turned out really well and each of us was really excited by how it went. I think that we are going to play TNT, (possibly being renamed Cru this coming semester), a few times. Possibly even playing the first one as the praise band was not able to practice over the summer. Oh and that brings me to this... I'm going to both play guitar and sing in the praise band this year. Vespers convinced me that I can do it and I think that it would be very good for us to have the person leading the band on an instrument. So... there you go... oh yeah! I have a new favorite worship song to play/sing and it is For the Cross by Matt Redman.

I'm sure that there is more for me to write but seeing as I'd been away for a bit I think that this will tide you over for now.

Currently Reading... Saturday - Ian McEwan

Currently Listening to... The Crane Wife - The Decemberists (don't you love it when cd's leak two months early!)

So...

Something crazy happened this summer... I got better at guitar. Not good... we won't go that far yet, but maybe mediocre. Not only that, but I can sing mediocrely at the same time... So now that I'm passable doing both at the same time, I have to figure out if I want to play both at Campus Crusades meetings. Before I just sang, and we did lose a guitarist to the air force academy. So instead of just singing maybe I'll do both... but I'm not sure yet. I am however very pleased with my progress.

I finally finished the Bonhoeffer book... wow did that take forever. But I'm glad that I stuck it out to the end, I don't want to form a habit of dropping books when I feel like it... also my favorite parts of the book were in the end. Either way I'll describe it like this... it was arduous. Now on to, hopefully, an accelerated reading schedule.

Well it's three in the morning and church is at 9:30 so I'm off to bed.

Currently Listening to... Xiu Xiu - I Luv the Valley, (Oh!)
Currently Reading... Vance and Burr - Kings in Disguise

An Unusual Brand of Poetry

So here's the deal, for some reason my spam mail has become entirely too amusing. I don't know if this is happening to everyone or just me, but I do know that it's amazing! After getting the obligatory viagra, cialis, home morgage, etc. there will be simply nonsensical sentences... like this...

there is a weak link in the chain of logic.
I will admit it has its ludicrous sidebut only at first
front of my body. I remembered the hope that this would
Incompetent. You dont see any robots like this in the

battlewagon. These changes could be made during
skin left to pick up with a tweezer. Now if you please.

charge and I would swear on a stack of thousand credit
sight behind a row of lubrication drums. I gently pried
Along the entire length of the alley my smoke bombs

Amazing or what!? If you get any good ones throw them in the comments.

Currently Listening to... Cubs in Five - The Mountain Goats
Currently Reading... The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Kings in Disguise - Vance and Burr