Abuse

The bedroom scene where David's sister is thrown against the wall hits somewhat close to home. There is a little girl and boy at church who are going through a similar situation. Their parents are divorced, and momma has a boyfriend, who is abusive. Yet there is silence. The mom will not report the boyfriend, most likely out of fear that no one else will "love" her, so she chooses the abuse over loneliness, even though it hurts her and her children.

Frustration

I can get so frustrated at times, whether it is with myself, objects or tools, or other people. When I clean the pool, and the vacuum decides it wants to stop working and mess up, I get angry and frustrated with it (though admittedly its human error a lot of the time) and want to just stop before I get even angrier and end up breaking it in my frustration.
At work, I can get frustrated with my co-workers. I don't care so much about them not working as their being in my way of working. If you're gonna stand around and talk, get out of my way!

Yard Work

As the only guy in my house, I typically (well, always) have to take care of the yard. I am the one who has to mow the lawn, weed-eat, etc. I don't typically edge the yard, though. Momma usually does that, because she does it better than anybody else.
I remember when I was younger and could never finish mowing the lawn in one day, whether or not it was because I was lazy or unskilled. I remember what should have taken about an hour and a half I always managed to stretch into three days. It felt like I was always mowing, and that I never got to do what I wanted because I was always mwoing. I remember those days when I didn't really know how to use a mower, and the days when I couldn't get it to start.

life

So, right now life is both really good and really hectic. I'm working four days out of the school week, which isn't too bad, i'm used to it. I've got a calculus test wednesday and I don't understand half of it. But this weekend is gonna rock! This is a karate tournament I'm competing in saturday, and I'm competing in forms, weapons, and sparring. I'll do really good in forms and weapons, but sparring is just for the fun of it. I'm not the best in the world, but I'm not too shabby. This will be my first open tournament, so I'm excited and nervous at the same time. We've also got our school tournament coming up on the 27th, which is going to be a lot of fun. I've actually got a good shot at making grand champion that day. Depends on how good I do at sparring. One guy I think I can beat, the other I will be really surprised to beat. I should do really good at forms and weapons. My friend Kayce thinks she's gonna beat me at weapons. I laughed at her. Haha. She is good though, so it won't be easy to beat her. But I'm not gonna tell her that. (Unless of course she's reading this. lol)
College isn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. So far the only hard part is keeping up with the blogs. For the most part, you don't have to do homework. That's great and that stinks really bad. I really need to keep up with my calculus homework so I don't panic each time we have a test. Last test I didn't understand the stuff until the class before the test. Right now I only half understand the stuff. But I've got time to study a lot tomorrow. So I should be good.
Well, if you have made it this far (I know it isn't too far, but still...) congratulate you on not dieing of boredom.

Tragedy and how it Affects Us

Matt Williams

This weekend, Taylor Bradford was shot on campus, and died shortly thereafter. It hasn’t really affected me like it has some people. I didn’t actually know him. It is almost like some distant feeling of sorrow. I’m sad that one of my fellow students has died.

It has affected me, though, in that it has once again shown me just how quickly life can change, and in some cases, end. Most of us take life for granted. We tend to think there will always be a tomorrow. Well, that is not always so, as in Taylor’s case. Life can end, just as abruptly for us as that bug that hits your windshield. It has reminded me to live as if it were my last day, and it has reminded me to let the people I love know that I love them, just in case I don’t get to see them again this side of eternity.

Family, friends and God

So, this past weekend was pretty much amazing. I went up to Jackson, TN saturday to help my sister and husband unpack their stuff in the awesome new house. I mainly help put together bookshelves. I left around lunch time, though, to go hang out with a friend from middle school (I lived in Jackson from 4th grade to Halloween of 9th grade) with, and whom I haven't seen in almost a year. We do lunch at Chick-fil-a, stop by Toys R Us to pick up some gifts cards for some little kids, and walk around Union University (where she goes to school) until 2 so she can show me her dorm. The whole time we're together we're just talking about God and about missions (we both don't really know what God has in store for us as far as life goes, but we both have a heart for missions) and other cool stuff. After I got done hanging out with Shannon, I finished helping my brother-in-law put together the other bookshelves that they had (I actually left while him and my brother were putting together the first one). Throughout the time with Shannon, God just used her to remind me of some stuff that I needed reminding of.
On Sunday, in Sunday School, I was reminded of something else, something that is as awesome as anything else I know. As a Christian, I am an adopted son of God, co-heirs with Christ. According to Roman law, adopted children weren't considered second class, but equals with the other children, having full legal rights to inheritances and property. As an adopted son, I have full rights to everything the Father has. I had forgotten that I am able to tap into God's power, and by doing so overcome these temptations that like to haunt me, so to speak. God is amazing.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

personal evaluation essay

Matt Williams

Wendy

English 1010

October 1, 2007

Self-Evaluation Essay

My first paper was due on the 25 of September, and was a textual analysis essay, 2000 words. So, to start of my incredibly ingenious process, I chose the most interesting to me, Prime Directive, and read it through. A couple of days later, I start to write the essay, and I sit down and read through the essay again, this time with a pen. I underlined anything that I found interesting, cool, thought-provoking, or that I thought would be useful in explaining what I thought Griffith was trying to say in his essay. After I finished reading it, I started writing, and I wrote about the essay chronologically, as that seemed to me to be the easiest way, since I had underlined different quotes throughout the essay. I gave some explanation of the essay, and as I said what I thought Griffith was saying, I used most of the quotes I’d underlined to highlight what I had said.

I think as a writer I started learning to be more expressive of my own opinions. And I mean started. I doubt I am yet as good and expressive as I need to be. As a reader, I don’t know that I changed a whole lot. I think I have started reading assigned texts more analytically, but probably not a whole lot as of yet. I don’t believe that I changed any as a person, though I might be more aware and more disgusted by the things humans can come up with to torture other humans.

I’m not sure yet what I will do differently next time. I haven’t received my paper yet, so I’m not sure where my mistakes are. I might start a little earlier though. While I didn’t skip my other classes for the sole purpose of writing the essay, I would have had to stay up all night to be able to finish it. So, I won’t under estimate how long it will take me to finish a paper next time.