The exquisite corpse

The Corpulent Pomegranite jumped the gorgeous Infant who was riding an amazing bicycle. The Infant then anthropomorphized the pretty tree for the blue boy who was running the ugly clock, so that the disastrous Economics would play the long coffee.

Julian's story was the best out of Navid's, Phil's and mine.

College so far

Well guys, it seems this semester is finally winding down. I say finally like it has dragged on. But honestly and truly it doesn't feel like its been going on at all. It seems just like yesterday that I was dreading having to start again. This year has really flown by though! But at the same time that it feels like it was yesterday that school started, it also seems so long ago. Time has become one of those things that is very relative and very out there. I have almost no concept of time anymore. I really don't understand how I always know which classes to go to and what days I work and have karate. Each day seems so long yet the weeks have been flying by. I don't understand it, but that's how life goes sometimes I guess.
I was so scared my first day of college. I really thought it was going to be incredibly tough, but it really hasn't been. There is a lot more freedom. No bells to tell you when to get to class. Most teachers don't give a crap whether or not you do homework, which is great, but sucks really bad too. Calculus isn't hard, but it would be a lot better if I would just study some. It is amazing though how the few times I've done homework that it takes forever to do one section when I don't have a test really soon, but when the test is in an hour, I can do three sections in thirty minutes, and actually grasp most of the concepts. That amazes me. I only wish I could harness that and use it every time.
I still dread history and lit. I think I am gonna hate both of them. All of the business courses seem like they will be pretty easy though. Or at least interesting. I'm kinda iffy about speech class though. It can be fun, but it can also suck. We'll see.

New Orleans, God, and missions

So, we're in college now, right? We're supposed to be figuring out what we're gonna do with our lives. I still have no freakin' clue what I want to do. As a Christian, I'm supposed to let God decide for me (or rather, wait on Him to tell me what He's already decided), which is easier said than done. I would absolutely love to be a missionary of some kind, though admittedly not all kinds of missions appeal to me. This past summer we went to New Orleans to help with Operation N.O.A.H Rebuild (N.O.A.H. stand for New Orleans Area Housing. Catchy name.) and I fell absolutely in love with it. I loved the work we were doing, I loved the city, I loved it! I felt so at home with it. (I just realized that this will also count as my "ah-ha moment" blog, too.) I just kind of felt like, you know, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. It was amazing! It was awesome to be able to give of ourselves, our time, and our money to go down and help these people who are still in need. We didn't actually get to meet the couple who owned the first house that we worked on, but we did get to meet the owner of the second house. She was the sweetest lady I think I've ever met. She even bought us Pop-eye's, New Orleans style. And it was good. So was a lot of the food we had. We usually ate dinner with the other people who were working with the N.O.A.H. Project, and they would have New Orleans originals for dinner some of the nights, and it was all really good.
Anyway, I would absolutely love to do something like that. Also I wouldn't mind doing something like being a pastor or a youth minister. So right now, unless God changes my mind, which I'm trying to stay really open about, I'm gonna major in MIS (management information systems) and minor in math. I got the idea for MIS from an old manager of mine at Chick-fil-a; he said it would be real useful if I was seriously looking into ministry. He said that churches are a lot like non-profit organizations, and the business aspect of MIS would help a lot, as would the computers aspect of the degree. I wanna minor in math because I've always been really good at math, and if I pursued the ministry career, its possible that I might have to have a second job, and teaching high school math would be a lot of fun for me, or at least I think so right now. So that's me right now, pretty much. I'm still trying to stay open about what I'm doing and am trying to listen to God's voice about what He would have for my life.

Customers and their stupidity/annoyance

So, last night at work, I wasn't the manager in charge, but Hope, who was the CSM for the night, was on break, so I was stuck with answering the phone, which usually isn't all that bad of a thing. But this one lady, who I believe to be German (her last name is Meinbach, and she sounds German) calls and complains about food she got around lunchtime yesterday. She starts complaining about how she got a strip salad, and her chicken strips are all oily. She also said the box her strips came in was oily. I don't have a problem believing the box got oily, or even that the strips were slightly greasy (though that is highly unlikely as well, they are usually on the dry side whenever I get them), but she said that there was oil running down her hand when she picked them up. I have never heard of that happening at Chick-fil-a before. Our chicken is never oily or greasy that I know of. Or at least not to the point of it running down your hand. And then she started dogging our Mexicans that work for us in the kitchen (that's why it was important that I mentioned that I'm pretty sure she's German). I wanted to yell at her. Our Mexicans rock. She went on some rant about how people who aren't from the United States don't realize that we have health problems and about how they don't care about following the rules that we have. Then she mentioned something about I would probably recognize her because she comes up here a lot. Sadly I know exactly who she is, and I always hate having to help her. It takes like 15 minutes to finish helping her, and I've yet to figure out why. She always order's a couple of kid's meals with no salt on the fries, and then usually complains that something isn't warm enough, or something like that. I told her, "Yes ma'am, I recognize your...", then she starts talking over me, as if I don't matter any. I ended up spending 10 minutes on the phone with her. It drove me crazy! I wanted to go off on her when she started being racist against our Mexicans. Seriously, they're awesome. Oh well, that's my rant for today.

Random English stuff

Playing music is like drugs. Playing music is like drugs in that playing good music feels good, and so does doing drugs, or so I’m told, at least.

Interpretive Conclusion: My list of things I believe in and strongly like is evidence of my faith in Christ Jesus, and the talents and hobbies I have in Him, with just a hint of pride in the car I drive that I love.

5 causes 3

People who think that churches only need to have traditional music cause homosexuality because they get rebellious against the church, the church as a whole (or at least it should be) is against homosexuality, they become homosexuals in order to spite the church, so to speak.

2nd annual RBKI Championship

So, I had another karate tournament yesterday, this one being at my church, where I take karate. (We have a karate ministry at church. It might sound really strange to have a karate 'ministry'. We are required to memorize scripture for each belt, and we associate each belt with one of the Fruits of the Spirit, found in Gal 5:22-23. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control; against such things there is no law." We use are physical skills as an outreach to demonstrate what God has done in us. And if you're thinking we're a bunch of Bible-thumping pansy's who think we take karate, you're sadly mistaken. We have one of the most comprehensive systems around. ATA Tae Kwon Doe, unless I'm mistaken, learn nine forms by they time they're black belt. We learn twenty-two. Not to mention we have Robert Blackstone as an instructor. That name probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you, but he's one of the best around, if not the best.) We had some of the most intense competition that I've ever seen. A lot more than the last tournament I competed in. I brought home two 2nd place medals, in forms and weapons, and one 3rd place in sparring. Every division was decided with about 6 tenths of a point, from 1st place to 5th in some divisions. I was beaten for first both times by 2 tenths of a point. That's how good we all were. And though I toke 3rd out of three in sparring, that was the most fun I've had in sparring. Talk about hard-core fighting. We had one tie in the younger divisions (who are surprisingly good, I'm glad they weren't in my division), and both were extremely awesome. Overall we had an incredibly good time, and I believe God was glorified through our sportsmanship and friendship.

Reader Response Essay

Matt Williams

Wendy

English 1010

October 18, 2007

Reader Response Essay

In Sanders’ essay “Under the Influence”, he describes his childhood, and how it was ravaged by his father’s alcoholism. He tells us about how he and his family never mention to anyone about how his father was a drunk, but always remain silent about it. He tells us his father’s dry spells, which were when Sanders’ sister was born, and how “the shock of fatherhood sobered him.” (Sanders 741) and he stayed sober until they moved to Ohio in 1951. “There I turned six and started school and woke into a child’s flickering awareness, just in time to see my father begin sneaking swigs in the garage.” (Sanders 741) Sanders goes on to describe how his father almost dies, and is warned by the doctors to stop drinking or the next binge will kill him. He takes what they say to heart, and doesn’t touch the stuff for fifteen years. Then after he has retired, he is offered a beer by the people helping him move, and he gets back into drinking, and it eventually kills him.

Right off the bat Sanders gets my attentions as he talks about his father. “He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” (Sanders 733) Here I see just how badly Sanders’ father drank. I see the boxer gasping for breath, and I also see that hungry dog, and his analogy makes a distinct point in my mind, that his father was as addicted to alcohol as I am to oxygen. I start to realize the pain Sanders went through as a child, and I start to sympathize and feel bad for him. I also get the impression that this is not going to be a particularly happy, joy-filled essay. I get the impression that Sanders is both hurt and angry: hurt from a father who was not always himself, who wasted both time and money to the drink, and angry that his father acted how he did towards him and his family.

Throughout his childhood, Sanders remembers when he and his siblings would watch their father get out of the car once he got home from work and stager up to the house and into his overstuffed chair and fall asleep. “All evening, until our bedtimes, we tiptoe past him, as past a snoring dragon.” (Sanders 733) Here I see their fear of waking him up and feeling his wrath. He awakens the image in my mind of Harry Potter flying around a dragon trying to steal an egg out from its nest in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. With such imagery even I get fearful for him, memory or not. Once Sanders’ father finally awakened, he and his wife would argue, ending in the wife fleeing to the bedroom weeping, which leaves the father to rummage through the house. “Whatever my brother and sister and mother may be thinking on their own rumpled pillows, I lie there hating him, loving him, fearing him, knowing I have failed him.” (Sanders 734) Here I imagine a confused little boy, not knowing quite what to think, quite what to feel, wishing that there was something that he could do to make his father better, and thinking it was his fault why his father drinks.

Throughout the essay, I get the feeling that Sanders is writing this essay with a feeling of sorrow. “In a matter of minutes, the contents of a bottle could transform a brave man into a coward, a buddy into a bully, a gifted athlete and skilled carpenter and shrewd businessman into a bumbler. No dictionary of synonyms for drunk would soften the anguish of watching our prince turn into a frog.” (Sanders 735) The word choice that Sanders uses here paints us the picture of someone becoming their opposite: the courageous man turn tail, friend turned enemy, the successful businessman turned into a bum, prince turned into frog. Here Sanders relates to us how he was deprived of his father throughout his childhood.

Throughout the essay I feel a sense of anger towards those who supply alcohol. “Because the Mom and Pop who ran the dump were neighbors of ours, living just down the tar-blistered road, I hated them all the more for poisoning my father. I wanted to sneak in their store and smash the bottles and set fire to the place. I also hated the Gallo brothers. . . I noted the Gallo brothers’ address . . . because I meant to go out there and tell Ernest and Julio what they were doing to my father, and then, if they showed no mercy, I would kill them.” (Sanders 737) I can definitely feel Sanders’ anger, and a lot of it. He uses a lot of passion while imagining how he wants to punish those who have caused his father to lose his right self. I can understand his anger, and I also understand his passion in his hatred, because he loves his father, but hates the drunken version of him.

Sanders lets us in on his religious views some, or at least how he was raised. “Our neighborhood was high on the Bible, and the Bible was hard on drunkards.” (Sanders 737) He lets us know here that he was raised in church, and was exposed to the Bible. “‘Wine and new wine take away the understanding.’ declared the prophet Hosea. We had also seen evidence of that in our father, who could multiply seven-digit numbers in his head when sober, but when drunk could not help us with fourth grade math.” (Sanders 738) I get the impression that Sanders believes this statement from the Bible, and I agree with him in that belief. “Bible and sermons and hymns combined to give us the impression that Moses should have brought down from the mountain another stone tablet, bearing the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not drink.” (Sanders 738) I get the impression from this quote from Sanders’ essay that he cannot stand drunkards, and once again, I find myself and my values re-enforced by the essay.

Sanders goes on to talk about a story from the New Testament. “The scariest and most illuminating Bible story apropos of drunkards was the one about the lunatic and the swine.” (Sanders 738) The story he is referring to is about a demon-possessed man, who is possessed by multiple demons, who could not be bound by any chains, and who hurt himself with stones in the graveyard. When Christ sent the demons away, they asked permission to go into the swine. “But I thought of the redeemed lunatic, who bathed himself and put on clothes and calmly sat at the feet of Jesus, restored—so the Bible said—to ‘his right mind’” (Sanders 738) Sanders takes this Bible story and relates it to his father. While the man was not a drunk, but was demon-possessed, the same concept of being out of ‘his right mind’ applies. He even goes so as to believe that his father was possessed by demons. I can see from his thoughts that his father might be demon-possessed that he clearly thinks that alcohol is evil, and the drunkenness is a grievous evil.

Towards the end of the essay, Sanders lets us know how he feels about social drinking. “I still shy away from nightclubs, from bars, from parties where the solvent is alcohol.” (Sanders 744) I get the impression that he is against drinking for the sake of entertainment, for the sake of fun. He is afraid that he will become like his father, and he does not have any wish to do so. But he isn’t against drinking entirely, which confuses me. “I still do—once a week, perhaps, a glass of wine, a can of beer, nothing stronger, nothing more. I listen for the turning of a key in my brain.” (Sanders 744) Here Sanders admits to drinking, but I get the impression that it is almost as if drinking is compulsory for him, which is why I am confused. I do think part of why he drinks once a week is so that he will not be tempted to go on a binge if he is denied (whether or not he denies himself of it) alcohol. But he is cautious, which leads me to believe he is a very wise and cautious man. He always makes sure he doesn’t hear that key click which opens the door to his second version or self.

Throughout various places in the essay, I am affected emotionally. Sometimes I fell pity, sympathy and sorrow by the pain a young boy feels at the thought that it is his fault his father drinks (“I was flung back into boyhood, acting as though my father would not drink himself to death if only I were perfect” [Sanders 743] ). At other times I feel anger and hatred when Sanders describes how he would love to burn down the store and kill the Gallo brothers. Mainly I feel sorrow for this boy who had to go through life with only half a father.