Overtime

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” - C.S. Lewis

I have updated my website as far as pictures go and my left side menu. I tried to upload and add the pictures I had on my computer, both older and new. I no longer have the patience to label each picture and now I just upload them on Yahoo Photos. I'm proud of my expanding menus, which wasn't very easy to do. I hope them make sense and are easy to use. I've also fixed my guestbook. I just got another free company and copy and pasted (with dates) all my old posts so that I wouldn't be starting over. The About Me section has also been changed. I hoping to change my blogger look somewhat, but I don’t know how to add some of my custom html to their new xml options. I’m really basic when it comes to maintaining a website, I’m sure it is clear considering most of my content is not from my site.

Things have been really busy. I have been working Thurs, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Monday and Wednesday I have class for 10 hours each day. I don't feel too tired since all the hard work and stress is on the lawyers, but it is amazing seeing how trial preparation works. I have been falling behind a bit in class, but that would probably be happening anyway. Monday I woke up early to help carry files to the courthouse, but I had class so I wasn’t able to watch or help.

I own a Dell 26in TV. I purchased it over 2 years ago and even though it is something I don’t need, it is one of my favorite possessions. The problem is that it always breaks. After a year past, I had to pay to get an extension of the warranty because I knew I would have to keep replacing it. It broke again. This is probably my 5th TV I’ve gone through, and in the past I have been offered another 26in TV that won’t break, but it only comes with one TV tuner and mine has two. This is a big deal to me, even if just in principal, but I have never owned a picture in picture tv and now that I have one, I don’t want to give it up. Today I called to process my exchange and threw out my idea that I get an upgrade to a 32in because changing to a 26in single tuner tv would be a downgrade. They finally accepted and I should be getting a 32 in TV soon. I’m really looking forward to that. I hope nothing goes wrong along the way. New toys are great and this reminds me of my financial situation which I need to figure out soon.

I don't go to church (much?). It seems very hypocritical because I consider myself to be somewhat spiritual and feel I have a good working relationship with God. I wonder if it is just laziness, which I know plays a role. I mean I can sleep or get up, get dressed and go to church. I could go later in the day when I'm awake, but same thing, I have to get dressed and go over. I think I know what also plays a role in my lack of attendance. I have trouble attending a lecture (Church is a type of lecture to me), where I know I'm not going to agree with 40% of what is said. It's the 60% I do agree with that makes me want to go, but that 40% that drives me crazy. (It could be 20% or less, just numbers for illustrative purposes). Unlike a lecture, I can't just take what I want and leave what I don't. At church it's all or nothing, or that is how they make it feel. I'm still a super sinner (cause we are all sinners they tell me) in their eyes, but then they are super sinners in other churches eyes (talking about you Baptists) because they all have such different rules (well spectrums of how serious they take their rules.) So I get frustrated and find most churches to be too judgmental, the messages preached with too much certainly. 'You don't know, I don't know and how can you say you know!' is all I think in my head. I think people want certainty and church offers them that, exact rules and explanations, when I can't accept that humans are capable of understanding something we can't fully understand. I do buy the rationale that some sort of organization is better than none and the teachings of the bible for the most part are very positive and honestly have probably very much shaped who I am as a person.

So back to the actual point I'm trying to make when I started. A person/church I really enjoy is Lakewood Church by Joel Osteen. (man I hope google doesn't catch this.) It is more than the fact I can watch from home, his messages are positive and more about improving yourself as a person than being guilty for having sex (seriously, that is all church seems to worry about, things concerned with sex). He is nothing like the hate I heard on the Christian station or generally the Right. But alas, he can't help but be part of the Right, I mean he is from Texas. So as the weeks go on and I have enjoyed his book, and his weekly sermons, then it starts up again -- things I don't agree with. He first makes an argument that we should respect our leaders’ decisions and not question them because God put them there for a reason. Oh how that pissed me off. He is alluding to Bush and claiming God wants him there and that we should support the needless killing of young men (and a dozen other pro-rich anti-middle class/poor policies.) He tried to sneak in some politics, tried to use God to justify what this devil is doing. That opened my eyes and made me a bit more critical from here on out. But, I forgave him for not knowing better and since everything else was great I continued to listen. Then Sunday, and this isn't a big deal, but was to me, he said that according to science and experts, a bubble bee should not be able to fly. A bubble bee flies because God wills it to fly. I knew in my gut he was totally wrong, but did not have proof off the top of my head. This is an argument for creationism (or anti-evolution) and it offends me that a person doesn't think God is amazing enough to create a system that creates life that can adapt and grow over time. I look up this factoid and find out that he of course was wrong. Here is a short explanation."The misunderstanding originally came from some work, by an aerodynamicist, that showed superficially that BUMBLE bees should not be able to fly. This work was later corrected when the interior musculature of the Bumble Bee was explained to the person concerned, but by this time the 'story' was well entrenched and nobody took any notice of the correction. This has been translated and misused by the media and has propagated the widely held belief. "

So I will forgive him for having a "widely held belief" and still respect the guy very much because I know he is actually probably a really good person despite the fact he is very rich. (Not that being rich doesn't make you a good person, but I don't usually trust people who get rich off spreading their word of God.) It all brings me back to why I feel I don't go to church as much as I should go. Here we have a church I actually like, a message I subscribe to, but yet it isn't that hard for it to upset me with disinformation. Imagine if I was at a church where they spoke words of hate and judgment, I'd go insane. Want to yell, no you are wrong, or at the least there is no way you can be that sure you are right. But they will claim faith my son, and how do you argue with that. I have faith, but not faith in things someone else told me.

Here is my football update. Notre Dame was fully of hype just like I was thinking. They lost badly this weekend and all the talk of them having a national title shot seems distant. Let’s see if they bounce back, but a lot of my favorites are now going down. Why do they have to play the games, why not just give the title to Texas again. Did you see how they crushed Rice…ok it was Rice.

You know where I haven't been in a long time, Baja Fresh. It was a place I had gone to a few times, but I started to really like it. It is a great alternative to Taco Bell and the lack of much good Mexican food in the area. It is a bit out of the way from my normal travels, but I do miss it a lot. Maybe I'll get to eat there soon.

I need to start looking for a job. That is a process I am not looking forward, but how nice would it be to not have to worry about where I’m going to work once the exam is over. If anyone has any leads, please let me know.

Looking forward to the weekend...for many reasons